LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



©|a|tJ~t'§i o4Ujvifl](ft :f 0. 

3helfXi..„- 

UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 




FROM DR. FRANKLIN'S BROOM-CORN SEED. 

See Page 294. 



WONDEK STORIES 



OF 



SCIENCE 



BY 

Rev. D. N. Beach, A^manda B. HarfwIS, Mary Wager-Fishek, 

James L. Bowen, and others. 






r 



ILLUSTRATED 






^ 



BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP & COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 






Copyright, 1883, 
By I) LoTHROP & Company. 



CONTENTS. 

Cl-j How Christmas Cards AkE Made . . 7 

A. B. Harris. 

11. A Pair of Gloves 39 

E. E. Dickinson. 

III. How Newspapers are Made ... 53 

Rro. D. N. Beach. 

IV. A Visit to a Camphor Refinery , . 97 

Z. D. Nichols. 

V. Umbrellas . , 105 

M. Wager Fisher. 
VI. How Fish-hooks are Made . . . 125 

T. B. Wilson. 
VII, Paul and the Comb-makers . . . 129 
y. L. Bowen. 

VIII. In the Gas Works 148 

M. Emory 
IX. The Way He Made the Fishing-rod , 16S 

A. B. Harris. 
X. Racing a Thunder-storm .... 189 
F. H. Taylor. 
S 



6 CONTENTS. 

XL August's " 'Speriment " .... 211 
S. B. C. Samuels. 
XII. Something about Light-houses . . 233 
M. Lockwood. 

XIII. John's Schoolmaster . . . . . 259 

M. C. Ballard. 

XIV. "Buy a Broom!" 273 

A. B. Harris. 

^' XV. Jennie Finds out How Dishes are Made . 279 

M.y. Harvey. 

XVI. Dolly's Shoes 309 

A. B. Harris. 

XVII. Talking by Signals 319 

C. A. Higgins. 

XVIII. How Logs go to Mill ... 331 

S. B . C. Saniuels. 
XIX. A Peep into a Lace Kingdom ... 343 
H. Morey. 

XX. A Cocoon Enterprise 355 

y. R. yennes. 
XXI. A Maple Sugar Camp ■ -373 x' 

4 



A. B, Harris. 



?)f 



HOW CHRISTMAS CARDS 
ARE MADE. 

WHAT should we older folks have said if we 
could have had, when we were children, a 
Christmas card sent to us even like the least beauti- 
ful of those in the shop windows during the Christmas 
season. 

In our time they probably had not so much as been 
thought of in this country. And it was not so vc7'y, 
very long ago either ! Then a stocking-full of candy 
a doll, a picture-book, a little wooden, or earthen, or 
sugar animal, a top, or any common toys — the list 
to select from was not long. 

Now — everything ! Ancf, besides all the rest, these 
lovely Christmas cards — works from artist hands. 
Of course Christmas cards are for all ages and every- 
body. But the young people and the very little folks 
have certainly been most lavishly remembered. There 
are even whole series of baby cards, where babies are 



8 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

seen doing all those pretty things which are thought 
so " cunning ! " And for the five or six year-old lads 
and lassies there are the sweetest pictures ever made ; 
and so on, all the way from the time of dolls, up. 

Cards, cards : sent from house to house, loading 
down the mail-bags, distributed in hospitals, going 
over the seas, down into mines, and off to lonely cat- 
tle ranches and log-cabin homes ; away back to the 
farthest western town, which in that period I spoke 
of had not even begun to be ; and to distant colonies 
where then only savages were — wherever the mail- 
bag goes, there go they. And that is one of the 
pleasant things about them, next to their prettiness 
and cheapness. They can be so conveniently sent, 
and with no cost but a postage-stamp. No breakages 
either, as there might be to a porcelain vase, a carved 
bracket, a wax doll, or an elaborate toy. The cards 
are really the most available of all the tokens of good- 
will, at a time when everybody wants to send some- 
thing to everybody else. And this is one of several 
reasons why they are so popular. 

To know just how popular they are with all classes, 
you ought to wait at the counter or near the windows 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. q 

of some store in one of the large cities just before 
Christmas. As that day approaches, these places 
fairly bloom out with cards. You would know the 
tempting show was spread, by the crowd hanging 
about from morning till night. Every one is a tip-toe 
to peep over his neighbors' shoulders, until you would 
think that the seeing and buying of Christmas cards 
were the great events of the season. And to some 
people they are. Now and then some forlorn-looking 
old woman or child-beggar comes with a few pennies 
to pay for one ; and the transaction has all the im- 
portance to the purchaser that a transfer of railroad 
or bank stock has to some millionaire broker. 

It was as good as reading a dozen story-books to 
stand one evening near the counter of a store where 
a brisk business in this line was going on, and watch 
those who were buying card» ; to see their faces and 
hear what they said. 

How those school-girls did "gush " ! It was just 
" gush " — no other word expresses all that delicious 
babble and chatter, those extravagant expressions, 
those little ripples of talk. Everything was " too 
sweet," or "too lovely," or ''too cunning for any- 



10 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

thing." It was a "darling," or a "dear." And they 
were so long in deciding, and they were so good- 
natured ! 

" Oh, isn't this just the most charming thing ? oh, 
isn't this splendid? oh, it is too perfect! It is — it 
is exquisite ! " " / like this best ! " " This is my choice ! 
No. I can't tell ! Oh, if they weren't all so pretty! 
How am I going to choose ? " " Which do you like 
best ? Oh, say, which do you ? " 

They were grammar-school girls who rattled away 
so — bright young girls with the rosy faces and spark- 
ling eyes that we older people like to look at ; and 
they had lovely Russia-leather porte-monnaies and glit- 
tering purses, and " lots of money to spend on Christ- 
mas cards." 

As they lingered, and chattered, and admired, 
and selected, away up even to the dollar cards, they 
were jostled by an old rag-picker, wrinkled, skinny, 
brown as a gypsy, careworn and poverty-stricken ; and 
then by a ragged bootblack and his comrade. 

She held a dingy piece of scrip on which a faded 
figure five was barely visible ; and she caught eagerly 
at a card adorned with a guady cherub, with wide- 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. I3 

open mouth, as if it was the only one worth looking 
at. Exchanging the crumpled rag of money for it, she 
hurried off, her treasure extended at arms' length 
before her, as one would hold out a contribution- 
box. 

The boy clutched a silver dime, while he stood in 
what must have been an agony of indecision before 
two cards ; and his companion sympathized with him. 
Our small polisher of boots was without a jacket; his 
trousers were patched, and so was his shirt ; his 
auburn hair showed through a hole in his hat, and 
his bare toes could be seen in the yawning gaps in his 
boots. But he had a taste for the beautiful, and the 
two cards represented everything to be desired. He 
wanted both, but could have only one. 

It was to be for Jessie ; but whether Jessie was his 
small sweetheart, or sister, »or neighbor, he did not 
tell. She was sick ; and she was English, and her 
father had been a gardener, and he was dead : and he 
had been fond of violets, and she had always loved 
English violets best of all flowers. And this was a 
card of English violets, so freshly gathered, it would 
seem that you could almost smell their delectable 



14 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

perfume. But the other card was a Kate Greenaway 
— a little damsel in a cap and flowered gown, with a 
green umbrella over her head. She had on red-heeled 
shoes, and she was walking in a garden ; and she 
looked '' like Jessie's sister that died that Jessie had 
not any photograph of." So, though the violets 
touched him nearly — poor, unkempt, rough-looking 
boy with the freckled face and red, chapped hands — 
his soul went forth to the little maid in the garden ; 
and he turned his eager gaze first to one and then the 
other, till at last destiny interposed in the form of a 
friendly hand which slipped a dime into his other palm, 
while a voice whispered in his ear, " Buy them both." 

Then came a child who wanted one " cheap but 
lovely," for her father who was in the mines in Colo- 
rado ; she had sent him one last year, and he had 
kept it stuck up over his bed ever since, and had 
looked at it every day and thought of her. 

A sailor's wife bought a cradle scene for her hus- 
band off at sea ; and a negro lad picked out a frog 
fiddling under a cat-tail, for his " old mammy at the 
Souf." A woman with one of those faces radiating 
benevolence, which the liabitual doer of kind deeds 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



15 




may almost be known by, 

supplied herself with 

enough for each convict 

in one of the State pris- 
• 
ons; and she said she 

never spent the same 
amount of money more 
to her satisfaction than 
in the same way last 

year. She had picked out home pictures : chil- 
dren playing, a fireside group, a mother with her 






ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



babe, and such things. And not a man but had done 
just what the miner did — put the card on the wall 
where he could see it the first thing in the morning. 

It was cheering to 
observe how every- 
body, old or young, 
seemed under the pow- 
er of that loving re- 
membrance of some- 
body ; and the very in- 
fluence of such a spirit 
made the homeliest face 
beautiful. It is wonderful 
what a beautitier is that feeling 
of " peace on earth, good-will 
to men," which takes such 
possession of people at Christ- 
mas time. If it would only 
stay by ! 

Yet there were exceptions. Two stylish girls ap- 
peared, holding back their skirts, looking supercil- 
ious, disdainful, turning up their noses at those 
around them; and they inquired for "the latest 




ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



17 



thing: something toney, you know." They did not 
want any of " those things, they are too common." 
" And why," asked 
one, " do you let such 
pretty things go so 
cheap that everybody 
can have them? It 
just spoils them." 

Whereupon the 
salesman quietly re- 
marked that it was one of l^' -s- 
the leading ideas of the card- 
publishers to make them com- 
mon, so that a taste for art 
should be educated. " Some 
of the best artists," he said 
*' design and work on just such 
cards as these that hit the 
popular fancy;" and he shuffled 
over cherub faces, English 
landscapes framed in shining 
green holly, children singing 
Christmas carols, baskets of fruie and flowers, 




TWO STYLISH GIRLS. 



1 8 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

birds, butterflies — everything that was attractive. 
"Every year," he added, "people expect some- 
thing prettier. Last year went beyond any other, and 
this year they are prettier than ever. By and by I am 
afraid the artists will exhaust their resources, but 1 
hope not." 

If you should ask a German where the cus- 
tom of sending Christmas cards originated, he would 
tell you " in Germany." And he would point you to 
those, good, bad and indifferent, which are imported 
from his country, and would speak especially of the 
Hildersheimer cards, which are so well known among 
dealers. Hamburg is a famous place to order from; 
and everybody who is familiar with the disjDlay at the 
holiday season, knows whence come those mice and 
storks and frogs, and ridiculous blue-bottle flies, 
doing such funny things ; those imps performing 
tricks; and the many with quaint interiors, and peas- 
ants in gay dresses. Some of these are appropriate 
to Christmas, but the most are only irresistibly comic 
and queer. 

It was indeed an old German custom to remember 
friends with cards. But in other countries they have 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



19 



long done the same. Not necessarily at Christmas, 
however. The Chinese, who know nothing of the 
meaning of 
such a day, 
have a fashion 
probably a s 
old as their 
empire itself. 
In all the Chi- 
nese laundries 
among us are 
to be seen on 
the walls flam- 
ing red papers 
marked with 
black charac- 
ters. These 
are the cards 
received on 
N e w^ Year, 
which remain 
t h e ]■ e until 
the next anniversary comes round, Mr. Ko- 




20 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

Kun-Hua, the mandarin at Harvard University., 
keeps up the national custom, and on our New 
Year's day (which is not the same as in China, 
sends his servant to the houses of his American 
friends, with handsome flowered cards inscribed in 
Chinese and English, with his good wishes, on the 
prescribed red paper, and carried in a red cloth. 

The Japanese have caught the Christmas idea; 
and within the last year or two there have appeared 
many Japanese cards, rich in such designs as we see 
on vases, fans and cabinets. But most of those for 
sale are made where the beautiful " Pekin China " 
ware is made — in England. There are, however, 
places where the genuine things are to be had ; Bos- 
ton has one store which imports them directly from 
Tokio. 

It is not difficult to distinguish the real article ; 
for though the imitation may be cleverly done, no 
imitators can manufacture the peculiar paper of 
which the Japanese cards are made. The cards are 
of the ordinary oblong shape, or in scallops, or leaf 
forms, and each one shows that it was cut separately 
by hand. No two are just *ftlike, and no two fit to- 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 21 

gether. The designs are ingenious, as might be 
expected, and the colors have a peculiar richness 
such as our artists cannot give. In every one of the 
pictures there are some little bits which do not at 
first catch the eye. For instance, on one of the su- 
perbly painted branches of flowers may be discovered 
a frog, holding fast by one arm while with the other he 
reaches a fish-line as far out as he can, to catch a crab 
in the water below. In another a spider is offering a 
fan to a bird ; a fly up in a tree has a lantern, which 
he is letting down to a young bird on the back of an 
old one ; and a grasshopper is trying to overtake 
one of his comrades to hold an umbrella over his 
head. In every one there is some little by-play of 
this kind. 

If you were to ask an Englishman where this great 
card movement started, he would probably tell you 
in his country, from the fact that cards have for sev- 
eral years been in use there as Christmas tokens. 
But there was nothing of any special account, or of 
any artistic value, either there or anywhere on the 
other side of the water, until Mr. Louis Prang put 
his energies into the work. ■ 



22 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

It will have to be claimed, then, in some sense, as 
among " Boston notions ; " and he must have the 
credit of its development. 

He started in a very modest way, about seven 
years ago, with floral cards on a black ground — a 
great many of you have some of the identical cards 
stored away among your souvenirs. And very hand- 
some they are too : such natural scarlet geraniums, 
such perfect daisies, and sprays of apple-blossoms 
on the solid background of black ! They are by no 
means to be disparaged, though the business has 
made such astonishing progress since. The work 
had the same qualities of thoroughness and fidelity 
then as now. 

Such was the small beginning. But they " took " 
at once. He introduced them into England (the 
first of the kind ever seen there), without any name, 
and they were known in the market simply as 
"American cards." They immediately became pop- 
ular; perhaps more so there and elsewhere in 
Europe than here. And for the same reason they 
have kept their hold. In Europe all classes love 
flowers. In Germany every villager has his bit of 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CA^l/fe. 



23 



flower garden — if he has the means, a small conser- 
vatory; at any rate, his window plants. In England 
it is the same. The London dressmakers who have 
only an humble dark room, invariably have a few 
pots of flowers in their window. To such people 
these cards appealed. 

And Mr. Prang's flower cards are called the finest 
in the world. He now has persons employed on 
them who are not only artists, but botanists ; and 
the pictures they produce are as beautiful and faith- 
ful as skill and study can make them. These re 
productions are only chromos, it is true, but are the 
most careful copies of excellent work. Nothing but 
the original hand-painted piece can surpass them. 

Cards painted by hand must always command a 
price too high for the purses of the many, and any 
considerable demand for them could not be met. As 
it is, several of our publishing houses employ their 
own artists on the preparation of these choice things, 
which are often done on ivory, or mounted on the fin- 
est board or on a lustrous back of satin. Among the 
artists whose names do not appear, are women who 
do this for their daily bread, drawing and coloring 



24 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDSc 



from life our field and garden flowers. There 
are touching histories of some whose patient 
hands are busy over this dainty employment. 




WHO RECEIVE CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



putting 
the lovers 
of beautiful forms under obligation to them for those 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



25 



groups 

of de- 
licious 
lilies, 
t h e 
wild 
ro s e s , 
t h e 
blood- 
r e d 
car d- 
i n al 

flowers and gold- 
en-rod; the very 
sight of which in 
the shop windows 
brings up memo- 
ries of rambles 
in the country, \-yV\A^C>. '* 
and the glory of C Al\p. 
summer days. 




v;\ ^ 







WHO RECEIVE CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

Specialties in Christmas cards each year make 
their appearance, beginning in price at two cents 



26 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

and ranging up to a dollar or more. But those from 
ten or fifteen to twenty-iive cents have the widest 
;ale. One house brings out an imitation birch-bark 
::ard with rustic design ; another in screen form, with 
Japanese scenes ; leaflets, panels, heavy cards with 
India-ink borders, or a gilt or silver back-ground ; a 
novelty if possible. 

About two years ago the Boston firm of S. W. Tilton 
& Co. issued a series of " Outline Design Cards " for 
studies and decorative purposes, which have met 
A'ith a good deal of favor. The work was by Miss 
Burlingame. They are graded and are furnished in 
packages of six^ together with a set of colors, and 
directions for using, so that any ingenious girl, 
even a child, can paint her own cards. The first is 
i/ery simple, but an extremely pretty thing. A little 
girl in a sort of Mother Hubbard cap, a trig coat 
with big pocket and buttons, a kerchief pinned 
round her shoulders, huge muff in one hand and 
stick in the other, is starting off on a journey, 
reminding one of Jeanie Deans trudging on foot 
up to London. In the order of progression, the 
designs become more difficult ; and such animated 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS 27 

and absurd scenes appear as a snow landscape with 
a jDolar bear bowing like a dancing-master, while he 
pays the compliments of the season to three penguins. 

Of the imported cards, those most familiar are the 
De La Rue, the Kate Greenaway, and the Marcus 
Ward. The De La Rues are delicate and mellow, 
rather than original or vigorous. They are apt to 
represent figures of tall, slender-limbed young vvomen 
in soft drapery, and the colors have a kind of Pom- 
peiian richness. They are dreamy-looking and 
aesthetic ; and there is a satiny softness about the 
finish which gives to all of them the same general 
characteristics. 

The Kate Greenaway cards belong with the age 
where nursery rhymes are a delight. Everybody 
knows now her old-fashioned little folks, with their 
distractingly pretty, quaint clothes. She, too, usually 
has human figures, but hers are children. Those 
small boys and girls, working in the garden, going to 
market, off on a holiday, walking in the fields, tend- 
ing dolls, out under umbrellas, playing at house- 
keeping, doing everything that their elders do, in 
such a wise, odd way, in such sober mimicry, such 



28 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS, 

make-believe — who does not know and admire 
them > 

The Marcus Ward cards are spoken of as English, 
but they are really produced in Ireland. The paper- 
mills and lithographic establishment of the firm are 
in Belfast, though scarcely an Irishman is to be 
found on their staff of artists and designers, but 
mostly English and Germans. Their cards come 
both in the single form and in the folded, where you 
have a whole series opening in jDanels. Some of the 
heads and landscapes are exquisite, appearing to 
have been copied from distinguished artists ; and the 
card itself is often of finish so choice that no other 
surpasses it. 

The three kinds, with the Hildersheimers from 
Germany, make the leading lines from Europe. 

But we must come back to the greatest card enter- 
prise in the world — that of Mr. Prang, which has 
grown like the famous bean-stalk of the story-book. 
His heart was in it from the first, and he had ideas 
of his own : the main thing was to get artists who 
would work them out. A better class of these began 
to come into the service, and within the last two or 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 29 

three years some of the best have tried theii hand. 
More still have become practically interested during 
this last year, for he has doubled his previous amount 
for prizes, offering $4000. 

The competition for prizes gave a great start to 
the business everywhere. It had long been in his 
mind, and he only waited until he felt sure that there 
would be artists enough to compete to make it 
worth while. The offer made in the spring of i88o 
was the first of the kind ever made by anybody. 
Since then, Raphael Tuck in England has followed 
his example. 

For the prizes of $1000, $500, $300 and $200, 
nearly seven hundred designs were sent in, of 
which, besides those of the successful competitors, 
he bought about twenty-five, which will be brought 
out at some future time. 

These prize cards have been so many times de- 
scribed that it need only be said that the first, by 
Miss Rosina Emmett, was a group of choir boys sing- 
ing a Christmas anthem, and the accessories of an 
angel announcing the glad news to a shepherd. The 
stars and passion-flowers were introduced with admi- 



$0 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

rable taste. The next, by Alexander Sandier,had no 
religious idea, but represented a little girl in much 
scarlet and white fur, kissing her finger-tips to you, 
while she gives good wishes ; and it is very sweet 
and winning. 

These two may be taken as types of the two dis- 
tinct classes of cards which began to divide public 
favor, crowding a little upon the floral cards which 
had hitherto held the market. 

In the second competition, Mr. Prang paid the 
same sum in prizes again, and a new feature was 
developed ; namely, a Christmas card of a character 
so distinctively artistic that it would answer just 
as well for a panel, or a wall picture, as for the 
holiday occasion. The design which won the first, 
has been much criticised, as wanting both in the 
religious element and in any fitness to Christmas. 
But as indicating another phase in the card enter- 
prise, it is artistic in every respect. 

About twenty-five hundred designs were offered in 
the second competition, though not by that number 
of individuals, some artists sending more than one. 
Of this list, fifteen hundred, more or less, were re- 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 3 1 

jected by the judges, and the others were placed on 
exhibition. Mr. Prang bought only fifteen or 
twenty. 

It was one of the noticeable things, that nearly 
all had human figures ; and as it takes an artist to 
draw a figure, there were lamentable failures. In 
many, otherwise commendable, the design was so 
complicated that the eye did not catch the meaning 
— one had to ask what it was. Others would have 
been well enough in their place, but were out of 
place there. 

It was pitiable to see how many people without 
talent or taste, dared to compete for a thousand- 
dollar prize. One old lady of seventy was sure she 
should get it; but after experimenting with a picture, 
her aspirations came down to the second, and then 
she applied to a professional artist to touch it up for 
her. 

There were the most crude and also the most 
absurd things offered. Angels with wings heavy 
enough to drag them to the earth ; strange mixtures 
of things ancient and modern; a bust of Caesar 
Augustus ; a Holy Family with the Star-spangled- 



32 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



banner in the background, and General 
Garfield on his way to the White House. 




f LI 



In the third competition a 
double set of prizes will be 
awarded; the first will be 
decided by a vote of artists 
and critics, the second by 
the direct vote of the peo- 
ple. At this date — the date 
when this article goes into type 
— the drawings of this third 
competition are on exhibition in New York city. About 
fifty of the seven hundred designs which were sent in, 
have been selected for the display. Each design is num- 
bered before it is hung in the gallery, and every visitor is 



WHO APPRECIATE CHRIST- 
MAS CARDS. 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



33 



invited to write the number of the drawing which 
has pleased him most, on a slip of paper, and de- 
posit it in a box before he leaves. In this way Mr. 
Prang, always painstaking and conscientious, hopes 
fully to gauge the popular tastes, and to give the 
people the cards that they best like.^ 

However, in these few 
years Mr. Prang has been 
able to judge pretty well 
about the success of 
certain styles of cards 
and the places where a 
special line would be a 
favorite. At first it was 
only in the larger cities 



'^- 



^-y^ 



L 




♦The Prizes have been awarded; and it will interest our readers to know 
mat the Second and Third Artists' Prizes went to the lady who illustrated 
this article, Miss L. B. Humphrey. 



34 ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 

that there was much demand for them. Now the 
orders come from every direction ; and last year the 
sales of this house alone were over five millions. 

A visit to his establishment in Roxbury, as the 
holiday time draws near, will give one an idea of 
the magnitude to which the Christmas-card business 
has grown. 

It takes three months to get one of those pictures 
through all the processes. In one long room a row 
of artists, each in his own little nook, at his own win- 
dow, is busy over something beautiful, tracing it by 
means of the sheet of gelatine, perhaps. Designs are 
constantly coming in. ]\Ir. Prang is prepared to take 
the best from any part of the world. They arrive 
from London, Berlin, Munich, Dresden ; and one 
lady has sent good work from county Galway, lately 
associated with land-leaguers and "Boycotting." 

In different departments the presses are going, 
and sheets of cards are being taken off and passed 
on for some further development. They go through 
processes enough fully to bewilder the looker-on 
before they come out in their finished state. 

Fifty or sixty girls occupy the packing-rooms, 




CHRISTMAS CARDS IN STATE PRISON. 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



Z1 



putting the cards in boxes, or otherwise prepar- 
ing for sending them off on their short or long 
journeys — perhaps to the nearest city, perhaps to 
an agent in Australia. And it is difficult to make 
one's way through and out of the bustling place. 

Then, when you have been to the machine shop, 
and have seen in rough a huge sample of the stone 
— a kind of limestone with some clay in it, which 
comes from a deep quarry in Germany — which is 
so important in this great business, you are invited 
by Mr. Prang to " the Library." 

You are conducted by him down to the base- 
ment to a cellar-like quarter, wholly foreign to 
any purpose or likeness of a library. In the dim- 
ness you can discern nothing that looks like a book. 
You are at the entrance of a half-subterranean pas- 
sage, scarcely wide enough for you to walk in, and 
stretching off in gloomy, chill perspective. But 
when he lights the gas, you see that it is lined 
with tablets of gray stone, each on its own individual 
shelf, laid up with the order of masonry. Like 
petrified volumes in solid folio, weighty, austere, 
left over from some age when there were giants 



38 



ABOUT CHRISTMAS CARDS. 



on the earth ! An ante- 
enduring 
" Each 
says, 



'0 diluvian literature in 
rock ! 




nal drawing on it, so that 
if everything else were de- 
stroyed, the picture could 
still be reproduced from 
it." 
Then, as he turns on a full blaze 
from all the burners down the gray 
vista, he puts the question, with a twinkle of 
merriment in his eye, — " And what do you think 
of the Library?" 



A PAIR OF GLOVES. 

JOHNSTOWN, N. Y., is a picturesque and inter- 
esting old village, connected as it is with the 
life of Sir William Johnson, of pre-Revolutionary 
fame, the hero of many a battle, the friend of the 
red men, and the promoter of civilization in a new 
country. His baronial-like residence, the Hall, with 
its lawns and old-fashioned flower-gardens, is near the 
village, and still in excellent preservation. About 
the time of Sir William's death in 1774, or a year or 
two later, an industry was begun here which was 
destined to rule the town in its trade, and which has 
now become gigantic in its proportions. 

Accounts of the origin of the glove bubiness in 
Johnstown and its vicinity are not very reliable ; but it 
is probable that one Tallmage Edwards, an English- 
man, taught the art to Edward O. Mills, a person 
who was sent from time to time to Holland to buy 



40 A PAIR OF GLOVES. 

wheat, and while there purchased skins. Out of 
these foreign skins, gloves and leather mittens were 
made, on a small scale, and pedlars on foot carried 
them into the Mohawk Valley, and sold them or 
exchanged them for deer skins. Later the art o^ 
dressing all kinds of skins suitable for glove-making 
was brought here, and from the manufacture of a few 
dozen pairs every year, hundreds of thousands of 
pairs are now made within the same period. The 
business seems to have taken possession of the entire 
village, and strikes a stranger with some peculiar as- 
pects. Sign-boards in every part of the village, even 
in the streets of private residences, advertise it, and 
a large propornon of the people met in the public 
thoroughfares are carrying gloves or mittens, made 
or unmade, to or from the factories ; while every- 
where in the outskirts of the town the odoriferous 
products of the skin-mills are flapping over trellises 
in the wind to dry. Curiosity led us into one of the 
larger establishments where all kinds of gloves and 
leather mittens are manufactured, where we witnessed 
the whole process, and talked with some of the opera- 
tives about their unique trade. 



A PAIR OF GLOVES. 41 

The building is on the prettiest streets in the town, 
and, save for the whirr of sewing-machines heard 
through the open windows, might be taken for a pri- 
vate residence. 

We were escorted through the different departments 
by the forewoman. She is a German girl who 
learned her trade in Berlin, has made gloves in Paris, 
and is familiar with the whole routine. 

"Ah, 5'es," she said quaintly, "I will tell you all 
about it, though you must ask me some questions. 
First, you know the best skins for making gloves 
come from Europe, Mexico, Central and South 
America. The skins cured here are but for the 
coarser kinds of gloves." 

"You have, then, nothing to do with the skins be- 
fore they are made up? " 

"Not to color or to dress them, but they are 
scraped here. Come you this way." 

She took us to a room where a dozen men were 
standing before high tables. Each had a skin of 
some kind, sheep, calf, or goat, stretched out before 
him. Each had a bowl of flour, and a kind of broad 
chisel which he dipped in the flour and then vigor- 



42 A PAIR OF GLOVES. 

ously scraped with it the wrong side of the skin. 

"This process," said Annie, "is to make thin the 
leathers and pHable. The flour makes soft the skin, 
and keeps from slipping the knife." 

Then she took us to another room where these 
scraped skins were cut by machinery into blocks or 
square pieces, the exact length and width of certain 
sizes of gloves and mittens. " You see } " said our 
guide. 

Yes, we saw; the skins, two or three thicknesses at 
a time, after being laid under a cutter, were chopped 
square in an instant. 

"Exactly," said Annie. "It is all exactly. You 
here now see this the second method; the third 
method, too, is made here." 

And now we were led to a third room where a 
young man stood before a machine that looked like a 
printing press. Beside him, on a table, were heaps 
of the square-cut skins. He showed us, at a sign 
from Annie, a square box open on one side, in which 
was a shining steel outline of a hand. On this out- 
line or shape he now laid six squares of skin, and 
slipping a cover on the box, placed it on the top of 



A PAIR OF GLOVES. 43 

the queer-looking machine, fixing it very squarely 
and evenly. Then he seized a string which held the 
handle of an upper arm, pulled this arm with its two 
big iron balls, one at either end, twisted it one side, 
then gave it a sharp, sudden turn twice, each time a 
soft distinct thud being heard. 

" Now you are to look," said Annie. 

The young man again fastened the handle of the 
cutting-machine ; then he took out the box. He was 
obliged to open it with a hammer, the top had become 
so fast. There in the box lay the entire glove, cut as 
smoothly and evenly and perfect in shape as if done 
by the most dextrous scissors — six of them. Each 
part of the six gloves was complete ; the hand, the 
fingers, the thumb isolated and by itself, with the 
little gusset on the under side of the thumb-piece, 
and the strips that go between the fingers. 

" See !" said Annie, " it is exactly." 

The workman quickly took out and laid aside the 
six gloves, and repeated the operation with another 
set of six skins. 

" Are all your gloves cut by machinery ? " we asked. 

"All, save those made to private orders, where the 



44 A PAIR OF GLOVES. 

hand is all over carefully measured, and the skin cut 
with the scissors. Now see again. From the cutting- 
machine — and you like to know that all gloves 
made for the general trade in Europe are cut in the 
same way — must be taken out all the shavings, the 
little scraps that are waste. This is done by other 
workmen. Then pairs are carefully sorted to each 
other, and laid together and marked. Then they are 
placed in the closet ready to be made up." 

*' Are they all made here ? " 

"Oh, no, no, no! they are carried to the private 
houses — by the dozens of pairs — all the persons 
taking them away having theirselves a book in which 
the number taken and returned are registered. We 
make only the best qualities here, and it is I who 
give them out to be made. Now come up-stairs." 

The buzz of sewing-machines was audible all over 
the building; and no wonder, since the second story 
was entirely occupied by girls making different 
kinds of gloves. 

"Are all the machines alike? And are all gloves 
sewed by machine? French gloves are sewed by 
hand, are they not ? " we asked. 



A PAIR OF GLOVES, 



47 



"There are several kinds of machines used in 
glove-sewing — some of French invention, some of 
your American. The over-sewers are all French; 
but no, no ; not any gloves are sewed now by hand. 
Here our finest gloves are made." 

She led us to one side of the long room, where half 
a dozen girls sat each before a peculiar-looking 
machine, its needle turned sidewise instead of being 
in a horizontal position. This process seemed a 
dainty one. On each machine lay a pile of soft dark 
skins, cut and ready for manufacture. The machine 
was (in this instance) threaded with white silk, two 
spools. The operator picked up a glove and folded 
it together — as you know from the lower part of the 
thumb to the wrist it is cut whole — and began the 
outside seam, a diminutive hook letting down the 
silk, the needle catching it, and thus the beautiful 
even over-seam of the glove was made. When she 
reached the top of the little finger, the operator 
paused, and picking up a pile of small slits of kid, se- 
lected one and inserted it in the seam she was sewing. 
If you will examine a kid glove, this insertion of the 
slit or gusset between the iEingers will be understood. 



48 



A PAIR OF GLOVES, 



Down then she went with the seam to the inside of 
the Httle finger; and so on up and down fingers, un- 
til she reached the top of the fore-finger, where she 
turned and went back to complete the outer seams of 
the gussets till the top of the little finger was again 
reached. The sewing of the thumb-piece and thumb- 
gusset was an after-process. 

"Now she has done her part of the glove, and ex- 
actly," remarked the forewoman. 

"How many pairs does she sew in a day?" 

"I think she and all the smart girls can sew six or 
seven dozen pairs in a day. The stitching on the 
back of the glove is made by another machine." 

The next group of sewers made a different seam in 
the gloves — a flat seam. It was stitched by another 
kind of machine ; and there were still other kinds, all 
for fine gloves for gentlemen and ladies' wear. The 
finishing at the top, whether of binding, pinking, or 
with gauntlets, was all done by separate workwomen, 
as well as the putting on of buttons and fastenings. 
Thus a completed glove has passed through the 
hands of five or six persons before it is folded and 
packed for sale. 



A PAIR OF GLOVES. 



49 



*' How many kinds of gloves do you make ? " 

" Oh, so many ! " said the forewoman. " The:e are 
heavy gloves for the warmtli, both gentlemen's and 
ladies' — coarse, thick affairs they are; there are the 
driving-gloves, the gauntleted gloves and the visit- 
ing gloves ; then there are leather mittens, lined 
with the woollen and topped with the fur, and the 
castor glove, and all the undressed-leather gloves of 
both yellow and black. Ah, they are many gloves ! " 

" Where do they send these gloves ? " 

" All over the United States." 

*' Have you any idea of the amount of the general 
trade of this town in gloves .'' " 

" I have heard it that it is about two hundred thou- 
sand dozen pairs in the year, but I think the number 
is the more." 

" How much does the ordinary glove-maker earn 
per week ? " 

" From ten to fifteen dollars ; some earns the 
twenty ; but usually they get forty dollars in the 
month, and the demand for the labor is greater than 
the supply. Little girls that do nothing but tie the 
ends of the threads on the coarser kinds of gloves 



50 A PAIR OF GLOVES. 

can earn fifteen dollars per month — ah, it's the 
good business. It is not the heavy kind. It makes 
no back to ache ! " 

" How many domestic skins are cut up in Johns- 
town during the year, do you suppose ? " 

" Something like twenty thousand are made ready 
here in or near the village." 

Later we learned the process of preparing the 
skins. The domestic, that is, the American skins of 
different kinds, and the imported, both "in the raw," 
are placed in a cask, seventy-five or eighty at a time, 
to receive a salt pickle ; they are then washed and 
placed in an alum bath, in which they remain twelve 
hours. Then they are stretched by a thin, round- 
faced iron, to remove wrinkles, and then are fastened 
to a frame to dry, either in the sun or by steam. 
They are next sorted for coloring, the best being 
reserved for the lighter shades. Again they are 
washed and put in an egg bath, the yolk alone being 
used. One mill has thus consumed six thousand 
dozens of eggs during the present year. After the 
egg bath, the skins, being now a pure white, are laid 
flesh-side down on zinc or lead tables, and brushed 



A PAIR OF GLOVES. 51 

over with liquid dyes composed of wood, citron, red- 
wood, lignum-vit£e, Brazil bark, etc., according to the 
colors desired. 

" Is this the final process ? " we asked. 

" Oh, no," said the proprietor of the mill. " The 
Lolor must be ' set,' and for this purpose a ' mordant ' 
of some kind is used — that is, the skins must be 
brushed with a preparation of alum, copperas and 
blue vitriol, again dried, then dampened and rolled 
up in separate parcels, flesh-side out, and packed in 
barrels to season ; that is to render every part alike, 
and equally soft and pliable. After the seasoning, 
they are shaved ; that is, a sharp knife is passed 
over the flesh side, and every little bunch or super- 
fluous particle is removed, making the surface 
smooth and soft. The last process is to polish the 
grain side of the skin with a pad made of flannel, 
making it still softer and more pliable and ready for 
manufacture. The finest white skins are reserved for 
white gloves, and are rubbed and re-rubbed with the 
flannel pad." 

" What a slow process ! " 

" Yes, and one requiring great care= Deer skins 



52 A PAIR OF GLOVES. 

are the most difficult to prepare, and the tanning is 
somewhat, but not essentially different, save in the 
smoking to which they are subjected. They are 
placed in a smoke-house to dry, the smoke also 
darkening them. Oh, there's work in it, plenty of 
work, hard work, careful work, puttering work ; but 
it's a good business, and an enduring business. 
Fact, we here think we've about as good as there is ! 
Certainly it is a prosperous town." 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 




E will suppose that it 
is a great newspaper, 
in a great city, print- 
^^Tv, ing daily 25,000, or 
more, copies. Here 
it is, v/ith wide col- 
ums, with small, compact type, with very little space 
wasted in head lines, eight large pages of it, some- 
thing like 100,000 words printed upon it, and sold 
for four cents — 25,000 words for a cent. It is a 
great institution — a power greater than a hundred 
banking-houses, than a hundred politicians, than a 
hundred clergymen. It collects and scatters news ; 
It instructs and entertains with valuable and sprightly 
articles ; it forms and concentrates public opinion; it 
in one way or another, brings its influence to bear 



54 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

upon millions of people, in its own, and other lands. 
Who would not like to know something about it ? 

And there is Tom, first of all, who declares that he 
is going to be a business man, and who already has a 
bank-book with a good many dollars entered on its 
credit side — there is Tom, I say, asking first of 
all : " How much does it cost ? and where does the 
money come from ? and is it a paying concern ? " 
Tom shall not have his questions expressly answered ; 
for it isn't exactly his business ; but here are some 
points from which he may figure : 

" Ho7v much does it cost? " Well, there is the pub- 
lishing department, with an eminent business man at 
its head, with two or three good business men for his 
assistants, and with several excellent clerks and 
other employes. Then there is the Editor-in-Chief, 
and the Managing Editor, and the City Editor, and 
a corps of editors of different departments, besides 
reporters — thirty or forty men in all, each with some 
special literary gift. Then there are thirty or forty 
men setting type ; a half-dozen proof-readers ; a 
half-dozen stereotypers ; the engineer and foreman 
and assistants below stairs, who do the printing \ 
and several men employed in the mailing depart- 
ment. Then there are tons and tons of paper to be 
bought each week j ink, new type, heavy bills foi 




THE i^. Y. TraBUNE BUILDING AT NIGHT. 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 57 

postage ; many hundreds of dollars a week for tele- 
graphic dispatches ; and the interest on the money 
invested in an expensive building ; expensive 
machinery, and an expensive stock of printers' 
materials — nothing being said of the pay of corre- 
spondents of the paper at the State Capitol, at 
Washington, at London, at Paris, etc. Tom is 
enough of a business man, already, I know, to figure 
up the weekly expenses of such an establishment at 
several thousands of dollars — a good many hun- 
dreds at each issue of the paper. 

" And where does the money come from ? " Partly 
from the sale of papers. Only four cents apiece, 
and only a part of that goes to the paper ; but, then, 
25,000 times, say two-and-a-half cents, is $625, which 
it must be confessed, is quite a respectable sum for 
quarter-dimes to pile up in a single day. But the 
greater part of the money comes from advertisements. 
Nearly half of the paper is taken up with them. If 
you take a half-dozen lines to the advertising clerk, 
he will charge you two or three dollars ; and there 
are several hundred times as much as your small 
advertisement in each paper. So you may guess 
what an income the advertising yields. And the 
larger, the more popular, and the more widely read 
the paper, the better will be the prices which adver- 



58 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

tisers will pay, and the more will be the advertise- 
ments. And so the publisher tries to sell as many 
papers as he can, partly because of the money which 
he gets for them, but more, because the more he 
sells the more advertising will he get, and the bet- 
ter rates will he charge for it. So, Tom. if you ever 
become the publisher of a newspaper, you must set 
your heart on getting an editor who will make a paper 
that will sell — whatever else he does or does not do. 
" And is it a paying concern ? " Well, I don't think 
the editors think they get very large pay, nor the cor- 
respondents, nor the reporters, nor the printers, nor the 
pressmen. They work incessantly j it is an intense sort 
of work ; the hours are long and late ; the chances of 
premature death are multiplied. T think they will all 
say : " We aren't in this business for the money that is 
in it ; we are in it for the influence of it, for the art of 
it, for the love of it ; but then, we are very glad to 
get our checks all the same." As to whether the 
paper pays the men who own it — which was Tom's 
question: I think that that "depends" a great deal 
on the state of trade, on the state of politics, and on 
the degree to which the paper will, or will not, scru- 
ple to do mean things. A great many papers would 
pay better, if they were meaner. It would be a great 
deal easier to make a good paper, if you did not 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 59 

have to sell it. When, then, Jonathan shall have 
become a minister, he doesn't want to bear down 
too hard on a " venal press " in his Fast Day and 
Thanksgiving sermons. Perhaps, by that time, Tom 
will be able to explain why. 

''How, 710W, is this paper made?'' "But," inter- 
rupts Jonathan, " before they make it, I should like 
to know where they get the 100,000 words to put into 
it; I have been cudgeling my brains for now two 
weeks to get words enough to fill a four page com- 
position — say 200 words, coarse.'' 

The words which are put into it are, besides the 
advertisements, chiefly: i. News; 2. Letters and 
articles on various subjects ; 3. Editorial articles, 
reviews, and notes ; 4. Odds and ends. 

The '' letters and articles on various subjects " come 
from all sorts of people : some from great writers 
who get large pay for even a brief communication ; 
some from paid correspondents in various parts of 
the world ; some from all sorts of people who wish 
to proclaim to the world some grievance of theirs, or 
to enlighten the world with some brilliant idea of 
theirs — which generally loses its luster the day the 
article is printed. A large proportion of letters and 
articles from this last class of people get sold for 
waste-paper before the printer sees them. This is 



6o 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 



one considerable- source of income to the paper, of 
which I neglected to tell Tom. 

As for the " odds and ends " — extracts from other 



Hail, lovely Spring 
bring 
. . . ring 




A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE WASTE-PAPER BASKET. 

papers, jokes, and various other scraps tucked in here 
and there — a man with shears and paste-pot has a 




OFFICE OF THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF. 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 63 

good deal to do with the making of them. If you 
should see him at work, you would want to laugh at 
him — as if he were, for all the world, only little 
Nell cutting and pasting from old papers, a " frieze " 
for her doll's house. But when his " odds and ends," 
tastefully scattered here and there through the paper, 
come under the reader's eye, they make, 1 am bound 
to say, a great deal of very hearty laughter which is 
not that laughter of ridicule which the sight of him 
at his work might excite. 

About the " news^'^ I must speak more fully. The 
'■^ editorial articles, reviews, and notes, ^'' we shall happen 
upon when we visit the office. 

A part of the news comes by telegraph from all 
parts of the world. Some of it is telegraphed to the 
paper by its correspondents, and the editors call it 
"special," because it is especially to them. Perhaps 
there is something in it which none of the other 
papers have yet heard of. 'But the general tele- 
graphic news, from the old-world and the new, is 
gathered up by the "Associated Press." That is to 
say, the leading papers form an Association and 
appoint men to send them news from the chief points 
in America and in EurojDe. These representatives 
of the Associated Press are very enterprising, and 



64 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE, 

they do not allow much news of importance to escape 
them. The salaries of these men, and the cost of the 
telegraphic dispatches, are divided up among the 
papers of the Association, so that the expense to each 
paper is comparatively small. Owing to this asso- 
ciation of papers, hundreds of papers throughout the 
country publish a great deal of matter on the same 
day which is word-for-word alike. 

Two devices in this matter of Associated Press 
dispatches save so much labor, that I think you will 
like me to describe them. 

One is this : Suppose there are a dozen papers in 
the same city v^^hich are entitled to the Associated 
Press dispatches. Instead of making a dozen sep- 
arate copies, which might vary through mistakes, 
one writing answers for all the dozen. First, a sheet 
of prepared tissue paper is laid down, then a sheet of 
a black, smutty sort of paper, then two sheets of 
tissue paper, then a sheet of black paper, and so on, 
until as many sheets of tissue paper have been piled 
up, as there are copies wanted. Upon the top sheet 
of paper, the message is written, not with pen, or 
pencil, but with a hard bone point, which presses so 
hard that the massive layers of tissue paper take off 
from the black paper a black line wherever the 
bone point has pressed. Thus a dozen pages are 




REGULAR C )NTRIBUTORS 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 67 

written with one writing, and off they go, just alike, 
to the several newspaper offices. The printers call 
this queer, tissue-paper copy — " manifold." 

The other device is a telegraphic one. Suppose 
the Associated Press agent in New York is sending 
a dispatch to the Boston papers. There are papers 
belonging to tlie Association at, say, New Haven, 
Hartford, Springfield and Worcester. Instead of 
sending a message to each of these points, also, 
the message goes to Boston, and operators at 
New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, and Worcester, 
listen to it as it goes through^ and copy it off. Thus 
one operator at New York is able to talk to perhaps 
a score of papers, in various parts of New England, 
or elsewhere, at once. 

But in a large city there is a great deal of city 
and suburban news. Take for example, New York ; 
and there is that great city, and Brooklyn, and Jer- 
sey City, and Hoboken, and Newark, and Elizabeth, 
to be looked after, as well as many large villages near 
at hand. And there is great competition between the 
papers, which shall get the most, the exactest, and 
the freshest, news. Consequently, each day, a lead- 
ing New York paper will publish a page or more of 
local news. The City Editor has charge of collect- 
ing this news. He has, perhaps, twenty or twenty- 



6^ HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

five men to help him — some in town,- and others 
in the suburbs. 

His plan for news collecting will be something, 
like this : He will have his secretary keep two 
great journals, with a page in each devoted to each 
day. One of these, the " blotter," will be to write 
things in which are going to happen. Everything that 
is going to happen to-morrow, the next day, the next, 
and so on, the secretary will make a memorandum of 
or paste a paragraph in about upon the page for the 
day on which the event will happen. Whatever he, 
or the City Editor, hears or reads of, that is going to 
happen, they thus put down in advance, until by and 
by, the book gets fairly fat and stout with slips which 
have been pasted in. But, this morning, the City 
Editor wants to lay out to-day's work. So his secre- 
tary turns to the "blotter," at to-day's page, and 
copies from it into to-day's page in the second 
book all the things to happen to-day — a dozen, or 
twenty, or thirty — a ship to be launched, a race to 
come off, a law-case to be opened, a criminal to be 
executed, such and such important meetings to be 
held, and so on. By this plan, nothing escapes the 
eye of the City Editor who, at the side of each thing 
to happen, writes the name of the reporter whom he 
wishes to have write the event up. This second book 




TYPE SETTERS' ROOM- 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE, 



71 



IS called the "assignment book ;" and, when it is 
made out, the reporters come in, find their orders 




type-setter's case in pi. 



upon it, and go out for their day's work, returning 
again at evening for any new assignments. Besides 
this, they, and the City Editor, keep sharp ears 



72 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

and eyes for anything new ; and so, amongst them, 
the city and suburbs are ransacked for every item of 
news of any importance. The City Editor is a sort 
of general. He keeps a close eye on his men. He 
finds out what they can best do, and sets them at 
that. He gives the good workers better and better 
work • the poor ones he gradually works out of the 
office. Those who make bad mistakes, or fail to get 
the news, which some other paper gets, are frequently 
"suspended," or else discharged out-and-out. Fail- 
ing to get news which other papers get, is called 
being "beaten," and no reporter can expect to get 
badly " beaten " many times without losing his posi- 
tion. 

And now, Tom, and Jonathan, and even little Nell, 
we'll all be magicians to-night, like the father of 
Miranda, in " The Tempest," and transport ourselves 
in an instant right to one of those great newspaper 
offices. 

It is six o'clock. The streets are dark. The gas- 
lights are glaring from hundreds of lamp-posts. Do 
you see the highest stories of all those buildings 
brilliant with lights ? Those are the type-setters' 
rooms of as many great newspapers. In a twinkling 
we are several stories up toward the top of one of 
these buildings. These are the Editorial Rooms. 




mm^m^^: -S'. ■ ^1 ' -- /'■:,\v ::;-R'm', 




HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 



75 



We'll make ourselves invisible, so that they'll not 
suspect our presence, and will do to-night just as 
they always do. 

Up over our heads, in the room of the type-setters, 




fhtVcYiti 



TAKING " PROOFS.' 



are a hundred columns, or more, of articles already 
set — enough to make two or three newspapers. The 
Foreman of the type-setters makes copies of these 
on narrow strips of paper with a hand-press, and 



76 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

sends them down to the Editor-in-Chief. These 
copies on narrow strips of paper, are called " proofs," 
because, when they are read over, the person reading 
them can see if the type has been set correctly — can 
prove the correctness or incorrectness of the type- 
setting. 

The Editor-in-Chief runs rapidly through these 
proofs, and marks, against here and there one, 
" J/^/f/," which means that it "must" be published 
in to-morrow's paper. Against other articles he 
marks, " Desirable^'" which means that the articles 
are " desirable " to be used, if there is room for 
them. Many of the articles he makes no mark 
against, because they can wait, perhaps a week, or a 
month. By having a great many articles in type all 
the time, they never lack — Jonathan will be glad to 
know — for something to put into the paper. Jona- 
than might well take the hint, and write his composi- 
tions well in advance. iVgainst some of the articles, 
the word " Reference " is written, which indicates that 
when the article is published an editorial article or 
note with " reference " to it must also be published. 
Before the Editor-in-Chief is through, perhaps he 
marks against one or two articles the word " Kill,'' 
which means that the article is, after all, not wanted 
in the paper, and that the type of it may be taken 




IN THE STERKOTYPtRs' ROOM. 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 79 

apart — the type-setters say " distributed " — without 
being printed. 

When the Editor-in-Chief is through with the 
proofs, perhaps he has a consultation with the Man- 
aging Editor — the first editor in authority after him 

— about some plans for to-night's paper, or for to- 
morrow, or for next week. Perhaps, then, he sum- 
mons in the Night Editor. The Night Editor is the 
man who stays until almost morning, who overlooks 
everything that goes into the paper, and who puts 
everything in according to the orders of the Editor-in- 
Chief, or of the Managing Editor. Well, he tells the 
Night Editor how he wants to-morrow's paper made, 
what articles to make the longest, and what ones 
to put in the most important places in the paper. 
Then, perhaps, the City Editor comes knocking at 
the door, and enters, and he and the Editor-in-Chief 
talk over some stirring piece of city news, and 
decide what to say in the editorial columns about it. 

After the Ediior-in-Chief has had these consulta- 
tions, perhaps he begins to dictate to his secretary 
letters to various persons, the secretary taking them 
down in short-hand, as fast as he can talk, and after- 
wards copying them out and sending them off. That 
is the sort of letter-writing which would suit little Nell 

— just to say off the letter, and not to have to write 



8o HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

it — which, in her case, means " printing " it in 
great, toilsome capitals. After dictating perhaps 
a dozen letters, it may be that the Editor-in-Chief 
dictates in the same manner, an editorial article, or 
some other matter which he wishes to have appear 
in the paper. Thus he spends several hours — per- 
haps the whole night — in seeing people, giving 
directions, dictating letters and articles, laying out 
new plans, and exercising a general headship over all 
things. 

Turning, now, from his room, we observe in the 
great room of the editors, a half dozen men or more 
seated at their several desks — the Managing Editor 
and the Night Editor about their duties ; two or 
three men looking over telegraph messages and 
getting them ready for the type-setters; two or three 
men writing editorial, and other articles. 

From this room we turn to the great room of the 
City Department. There is the City Editor, in his 
little, partitioned-off room, writing an editorial, we 
will suppose, on the annual report of the City Treas- 
urer, which has to-day been oriven to the public. 
At desks, about the great room, a half-dozen re- 
porters are writing up the news which they have 
been appointed to collect ; and another, and another, 
comes in every little while. 




FINISHING THE PLATE. 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 83 

Over there, is the little, partitioned-off room for 
the Assistant City Editor. It is this man's duty, 
with his assistant, to prepare for the type-setters all 
the articles which come from the City Department. 
There are stacks and stacks of them. Each reporter 
thinks his subject is the most important, and writes it 
up fully ; and, when it is all together, perhaps there 
is a third or a half more than there is room in the 
paper to print. So the Assistant City Editor, and his 
Assistant, who come to the ofBce at about five o'clock 
in the afternoon, read it all over carefully, correct it, 
cut out that which it is not best to use, group all the 
news of the same sort so that it may come under 
one general head, put on suitable titles, decide what 
sort of type to put it in, etc., — a good night's work 
for both of them. They also write little introduc- 
tions to the general subjects, and so harmonize and 
modify the work of twenty or^ twenty-five reporters, as 
to make it read almost as if it were written by one 
man, with one end in view. 

The editors of the general news have to do much 
the same thing by the letters of correspondents, and 
by the telegraphic dispatches. 

While this sort of work goes on, hour after hour, 
with many merry laughs and many good jokes inter- 
spersed to make the time fly the swifter, we will 



84 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

wander about the establishment. Here, in the top 
3tory of the building, is the room of the type-setters. 
Every few minutes, from down-stairs in the Counting 
Room, comes a package of advertisements to be put 
into type ; and from the Editorial Rooms a package 
of news and general articles for the same purpose. 
They do not trouble to send them up by a messenger. 
A tube, with wind blown through it very fast, brings 
up every little while a little leathern bag, in which 
are the advertisements or the articles — the " copy " 
as the type-setters call it. 

In this room are thirty or forty type-setters. Each 
one of them has his number. When the copy comes 
up, a man takes it and cuts it up into little bits, as 
much as will make, say, a dozen lines in the paper, 
and numbers the bits — " one," " two," etc., to the 
end of the article. Type-setter after type-setter comes 
and takes one of these little bits, and in a few 
moments sets the type for it, and lays it down in a 
long trough, with the number of the bit of copy laid 
by the side of it. We v/ill suppose that an article 
has been cut up into twenty bits. Twenty men will 
each in a few moments be setting one of these bits, 
and, in a few minutes more they will come and lay 
down the type and the number of the bit in the long 
trough, in just the right order of the number of the 
bits — " one," " two," etc. Then all the type will be 




SjoqvJ^ 



/^£X^\ -'/W-Z/tor' 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 87 

slid together, and a long article will thus be set in a 
few minutes, which it would take one or two men 
several hours to set. It is by this means that long 
articles can in so short a time be put into type. 
Each man who takes a bit, has to make his last line 
fill out to the end of the line ; and, because there are 
sometimes not words enough, so that he has to fill 
out with some extra spaces between the words, you 
may often see in any large daily paper every two 
inches, or so, a widely spaced line or two showing 
how the type-setter had to fill out his bit with spaces 
— only he would call the bit, a " take." 

I said that each type-setter has his number. We 
will suppose that this man, next to us, is number 
" twenty-five." Then he is provided with a great 
many pieces of metal, just the width of a column, 
with his number made on them — thus : " TWENTY- 
FIVE." Every time he sets a new bit of copy, he 
puts one of these " twenty-fives " at the top ; and 
when all the bits of type in the long trough are slid 
together the type is broken up every two inches 
or so, with "twenty-five," "thirty-seven," "two," 
" eleven," and so on, at the top of the bits which the 
men, whose numbers these are, have set. When a 
proof of the article is taken, these several numbers 
appear ; and, if there are mistakes, it appears from 
these numbers, what type-setters made them, and 



88 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

they have to correct them. Also, of each article, a 
single "proof " is taken on colored paper. These 
colored paper " proofs " are cut up the next day, and 
all the pieces marked "twenty-five," "thirty-seven,' 
and so on, go to the men who have these numbers, 

Add Yellow Fever 

Eight new cases of yellow fever— foar whites and tour 
colored— ■vveie reported to the Board of /Health to-day. 
But oue death has occurred since last uight, Archie P 
"Kehoe, son of the late Captain P. M. Kehoe, who died 
heyoiid the eity limits. 

THIRTY-FOUR 

In addition to the new eases reported to the Board of 
&ealth,the rollowing" persons were striolien with the 
fever to-day : Lyttieion Penn ; P. S. Simonds, an ex- 
polieeman ; Jessie. Anderson, Mrs. John Bierman, and 
R. T. Dabney^ tlie Signal Service officer, -who it was 
tlioug-ht had a mild attack of the fever ahoat three 
weeks ago, 

FIVE 

Miss Loni^e Bedford died last night of yellow fever at 
Barclay Station. Tenn. 

Fifteen nurses were assigned to duly to-da^y hy the 
Howards. 

The weather is clear and pleasant. 

TWENTY THREE 

FAC-SIMILE OF " PROOF " SHOWING "TAKES." 

and when pasted together show how much type, 
number "twenty-five," "thirty-seven," and so on, are 
to be paid for setting — for the type-setters are paid 
according to the amount of type which they set. 

As fast as the proofs are taken they go into the 
room of the proof-readers to be corrected. The bits 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 89 

of copy are pasted together again, and one man holds 
the copy while another reads the proof aloud. The 
man holding the copy notices any points in which the 
proof does not read like the copy, and tells the man 
who is reading it. The man reading it corrects the 
variations from copy, and corrects all the other mis- 
takes which he can discover, and then the type-setters 
have to change the type so as to make it right. 
There the proof readers sit hard at work, reading 
incredibly fast, and making rapid and accurate cor- 
rections ; then the "copy " is locked up, and no one 
can get at it, except the Managing Editor or Editor- 
in-Chief gives an order to see it. This precaution is 
taken, in order to make certain who is responsible 
for any mistakes which appear in the paper — the 
editors, or the type-setters. 

By this time it is nearly midnight, and the editors, 
type-setters, etc., take their lunches. They either go 
out to restaurants for them,* or have them sent in — 
hot coffee, sandwiches, fruit, etc. — a good meal for 
which they are all glad to stop. 

And now the Foreman of the type-setters sends to 
the Night Editor that matter enough is in type to 
begin the " make-up " — that is, to put together the 
first pages of the paper. There the beautiful type 
stands, in long troughs, all corrected now, the great 



90 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 



numbers of the type-setters removed from between 
the bits of type — the whole ready to be arranged into 
page after page of the paper. So the Night Editor 
makes a hst of the articles which he wants on the 
page which is to be made up ; the Foreman puts 
them in in the order which the Night Editor indi- 
cates ; the completed page is wedged securely into 
an iron frame, and then is ready to be stereotyped. 

The room of the stereotypers is off by itself. There 
is a furnace in it, and a great caldron of melted type 
metal. They take the page of the paper which has 
just been made up ; put it 
V WW ^l °^ ^ ^^^ steam chest ; spat 

down upon the type 
some thick pulpy paper 
soaked so as to make it 
fit around the type ; spread 




V. 3& Mm 

A NEWS-DEALER. 

plaster of Paris on the back, so as to keep the pulpy 
paper in shape ; and put the whole under the press 
ivhich more perfectly squeezes the pulpy paper down 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 9 1 

upon the type, and causes it to take a more perfect 
impression of the type. The heat of the steam 
chest warms the type, and quickly dries the pulpy 
paper and the plaster of Paris. Then the pulpy pa- 
per is taken off, and curved with just such a curve as 
the cylinders of the printing-press have, and melted 
type metal is poured over it, which cools in a moment ; 
when, lo, there is a curving plate of type-metal just 
like the type ! The whole process of making this plate 
takes only a few minutes. They use such plates as 
these, rather than type, in printing the great papers 
chiefly for reasons like these : i. Because plates save 
the wear of type; 2. Because they are easier 
handled ; 3. Because they can be made curving, to 
fit the cylinders of the printing presses as it would be 
difficult to arrange the type ; 4. Because several 
plates can be made from the same type, and hence 
several presses can be put at work at the same time 
printing the same paper; ^. Because, if anything 
needs to be added to the paper, after the presses have 
begun running, the type being left up-stairs can be 
changed and new plates made, so that the presses 

need stop only a minute for the new plates to be put 

*\ — which is a great saving of time. 

But, coming down into the Editorial Rooms again 
—-business Tom, and thoughtful Jonathan, and sleepy 



92 HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 

little Nell — all is excitement. Telegrams have just 
come in telling of the wreck of an ocean steamer, and 
men are just being dispatched to the steamer's office 
to learn all the particulars possible, and to get, if it 
may be, a list of the passengers and crew. And 
now, just in the midst of this, a fire-alarm strikes, and 
in a few moments the streets are as light as day with 
the flames of a burning warehouse in the heart of the 
business part of the city. More men are sent off to 
that ; and, what with the fire and the wreck, ever}^ 
reporter, every copy-editor, every type-setter and 
proof-reader are put to their hardest work until the 
last minute before the last page of the paper must 
be sent down to the press-rooms. Then, just at 
the last, perhaps the best writer in the office dashes 
off a " leader " on the wreck sending a few lines at 
a time to the type-setters — a leader which, though 
thought out, written, set, corrected, and stereotyped 
in forty minutes, by reason of its clearness, its 
wisdom, and its brilliancy, is copied far and wide, 
and leads the public generallyto decide where to fix 
the blame, and how to avoid a like accident again. 
There is the work of the " editorial articles^ reviews, 
and notes " — to comment on events which hap- 
pen, and to influence the minds of the public as 
the editorial management of the paper regards to 







A BAD MORNING FOR THE NEWS-BOYS, 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 95 

be wise. There is all sorts of this editorial writing 
— fun, politics, science, literature, religion — and he 
who says, with his pen, the say of such a newspaper, 
wields an influence which no mind can measure. 

Well, the fire, and the wreck, have thoroughly 
awakened even little Nell. And so down, down we 
go, far under ground, to the Press-rooms. There the 
noise is deafening. Two or three presses are at 
work. At one end of the press is a great roll of pa- 
per as big as a hogshead and a mile or more long. 
This immense roll of paper is unwinding very fast, 
and going in at one end of the machine ; while at the 
other end, faster than you can count, are coming out 
finished papers — the papers printed on both sides, 
cut up, folded, and counted, without the touch of a 
hand — a perfect marvel and miracle of human inge- 
nuity. The sight is a sight to remember for a life- 
time. Upon what one here sees, hinges very much 
of the thinking of a metropolis and of a land. 

And now, here come the mailing clerks, to get 
their papers to send off — with great accuracy and 
speed of directing and packing — by the first mails 
which leave the city within an hour and a half, at five 
and six o'clock in the morning. And after them 
come the newsboys, each for his bundle ; and soon 
the frosty morning air in the gray dawn is alive 



96 



HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. 



with the shouting of the latest news in this and a 
dozen other papers. 

This, I am sure, is too fast a world even for busi- 




"ANY ANSWERS COME FOR ME?" 

ness Tom : so let us " spirit " ourselves back to our 
beds in the quiet, slow-moving, earnest country — 
Tom and Jonathan and little Nell and I — home, 
and to sleep — and don't wake us till dinner-time ! 



A VISIT TO A CAMPHOR 
REFINERY. 

PeMIGEWASSET HoUSE, PLYMOUTH, N. H. 

I A EAR PAUL : — Vou know I promised to write 
-*— ^ to you, if I saw anything interesting that I 
was sure you had never seen ; and now I have, and 
so I will. For just after breakfast, a gentleman 
asked father if he wouldn't like to take an eight- 
mile drive with him to see some camphor works. 

Father said, "Yes, indeed ; '' and then he stopped 
and looked at me ; and he told me afterwards that 
my eyes were so big and pitiful that it was no won- 
der that the gentleman said, '" Is this your little girl ? 
I guess we can tuck her in if she don't want to be 
left." 

So they did, and presently we were riding up 
one of the steepest hills I ever saw, and Plymouth 
was away down behind us, and then came West 



98 A VISIT TO A CA.MPHOR REFIXKRY. 

Plymouth, and then we were going beside a very 
clear but very crooked stream called Baker's River, 
and the gentleman said, " This is Rumney, and that 
is Hawk I.edge, and there is Rattlesnake Mountain;" 
and, by and by, '' Here is the camphor refinery." 

He opened a gate, and we drove into a big grassy 
field, right up to the door of a rough, unpainted 
building, like a big barn, only there was a chimney 
smoking very hard at one end of it. Papa jumped 
me out, and into the wide-open door, and oh ! such a 
suffocating smell of camphor, that I felt as if I must 
run out, or tumble down, or else sneeze my head off. 
But I thought in a minute that if you were there, you 
would say, " Come now, Laura, don't be a goose," 
and you'd behave exactly as if you'd smelt that smell, 
and nothing else, ever since you were born. So 
I stood still and looked all about, and thought 
what a good place it would be to put away furs 
in. Presently I got used to the air, and didn't mind 
it at all ; and this is what I saw : A great, long room, 
as big as the biggest barn at grandpa's — a door 
wide open at each end — some little windows, very 
cobwebby and dusty (the man told us they Imdn't 



A VISIT TO A CAMPHOR REFINERY. 99 

been washed for twenty years, and you'd think so), 
and what looked like three great dinner-tables, only 
they were made of brick, all set with double rows 
of covered dishes, just as if it was a boarding-school 
for giants, and every one was going to have an iron 
pan full of oatmeal for his breakfast. There were 
no seats for the giants, though, and when I went 
near the brick tables, I found they were really fur- 
naces, with a hot fire in each ; and when a man 
opened an iron door in the end of one, I saw that 
the fire was roaring red inside, made of great sticks 
of wood. Each furnace was so long that it held 
twenty pans, I am sure, and wide enough for two 
rows of them ; so if the giants had come, there 
would have been a hundred and twenty in all, and 
even vou, sir, would have been scared. Some of the 
pans were square and some were round, but every 
cover had a round hole in it about as big as an old 
copper cent, and over every hole was put a bright 
tin horn, just like a candle-extinguisher, only ten 
times as big. A tall man, with gray hair and very 
bright, pleasant eyes, was going about, lifting off 
these extinguishers, and poking something white 



(OO A VISIT TO A CAMPHOR REFINERY. 

back into the hole in the cover with a knife. 

I said to myself, "This is the giants' cook, and he 
is afraid their porridge will boil over before the lazy 
things come down to breakfast." But just then he 
noticed my staring, I suppose, and so he kindly 
showed me the inside of one of the horns ; and it was 
thickly crusted with the loveliest white crystals, as 
delicate as frost, and as deep as mother's ermine. 
The white lump that he pushed back into the hole in 
the cover was just the same. Then I saw that all 
those pans held camphor-gum, and as the hot fire 
below melted and simmered it, these pure snowy 
crystals rose and clung to the inside of the cover, and 
rounded out at the hole, and up into the extinguisher, 
leaving all the sand and dirt and bits of wood in the 
bottom of the dish in a hard cake. Mr. Holden — 
that was the pleasant man's name — said that if he 
didn't keep on the extinguishers the crystals would 
be hanging all over the rough walls and rafters of the 
room. Wouldn't it look like a fairy palace or 
Aladdin's Cave .'' 

Once, instead of pushing the camphor back, He 
ran his knife round it, took it out and laid it In my 



A VISIT TO A CAMPHOR REFINERY. 1 03 

hand. It felt hot through my glove, and looked like 
a spiral of fresh cream candy. He told me that 
the camphor was put into the iron pans just as it 
comes from China and Japan, and set on these 
furnaces to simmer for several days. The covers 
are cemented on with a paste made of whiting and 
rye-meal, so there is some porridge about it, after all. 

At the end of each furnace is a pail of cold water, 
with a sponge in it, with which he cools off any dish 
that seems too hot ; I had called them the giants' fin- 
ger-glasses. Then father called me to the end of the 
room, and showed me a great tub full of the crude 
camphor, which looks just like dirty, coarse, white 
sugar, or the snow in Washington street when it is a 
week old. It comes from China and Japan in square 
boxes, covered with Eastern-looking matting, each 
box weighing about three hundred pounds. I know 
you like figures. 

Last of all, I saw some of the pans which were all 
cooked and cooled, and another man was taking the 
camphor out to be sent away and sold. First he 
cracked off the cement that held on the cover, sweep- 
ing it into a heap on one side, to be wet and used 



I04 A VISIT TO A CAMPHOR REFINERY. 

again, and then off came the cover with a great cake 
of pure, beautiful camphor an inch thick, sticking 
so fast to it that he had to force it off with a strong 
knife, and almost never got it off whole. It looked 
some like rock candy and some like ice, and the 
rubbish in the bottom of the pan looked like burnt 
bread. Mr. Holden thinks they get camphor out of 
the camphor trees, very much as he gets maple sugar 
— first tapping the tree for sap, and then boiling it 
down. His refinery is the only one in New England, 
except one in Connecticut, but that is owned in New 
York. We stopped at another interesting place 
going home ; but I am so sleepy I must save that for 
another letter. 



UMBRELLAS. 



ABOUT one hundred and thirty years ago, an 
Englishman named Jonas Hanway, who had 




THE FIRST UMBRELLA. 



been a great traveller, went out for a walk in the city 
of London, carryiB^ -^r. umbrella over his head. 



io6 



UMBRELLAS. 



Every time he went out for a walk, if it rained or if 
the sun shone hotly, he carried this umbrella, and all 
along the streets, wherever he appeared, men and boys 
hooted and laughed ; while women and girls, in door- 




WHAT JONAS SAW ADOWN THE FUTURE. 

ways and windows, giggled and stared at the strange 
sight, for this Jonas Hanway was the first man to 
commonly carry an umbrella in the city of London, 



UMBRELLAS. I07 

and everybody, but himself, thought it was a most 
ridiculous thing to do. 

But he seems to have been a man of strength and 
courage, and determined not to give up his umbrella 
even if all London made fun of him. Perhaps, in imagi- 
nation, he saw adown the future, millions of umbrellas 
— umbrellas enough to shelter the whole island of 
England from rain. 

Whether he did foresee the innumerable posterity 
of his umbrella or not, the " millions " of umbrellas 
have actually come to pass. 

But Jonas Hanway was by no means the first man 
in the world to carry an umbrella. As I have already 
mentioned, he had travelled a great deal, and had 
seen umbrellas in China, Japan, in India and Africa, 
where they had been in use for so many hundreds of 
years that nobody knows when the first one was 
made. So long ago as Nineveh existed in its splen- 
dor, umbrellas were used, as'they are yet to be found 
sculptured on the ruins of that magnificent capital of 
Assyria, as well as on the monuments of Egypt which 
are very, very old ; and your ancient history will tell 
you that the city of Nineveh was founded not long 
after the flood. Perhaps it was that great rain, of 
forty days and forty nights, that put in the minds of 
Noah, or some of his sons, the idea to build an um- 
brella ! 



Io8 UMBRELLAS, 

Although here in America the umbrella means noth- 
ing but an umbrella, it is quite different in some of the 
far Eastern countries. In some parts of Asia and Af- 
rica no one but a royal personage is allowed to carry 
an umbrella. In Siam it is a mark of rank. The 
King's umbrella is composed of one umbrella above 
another, a series of circles, while that of a nobleman 
consists of but one circle. In Burmah it is much the 
same as in Siam while the Burmese King has an um- 
brella-title that is very comical : " Lord of the twenty- 
four umbrellas." 

The reason why the people of London ridiculed 
Jonas Han way was because at that time it was con- 
sidered only proper that an umbrella should be car- 
ried by a woman, and for a man to make use of one 
was very much as if he had worn a petticoat. 

There is in one of the Harleian MSS. a curious pic- 
ture showing an Anglo-Saxon gentleman walking out, 
with his servant behind him carrying an umbrella ; 
the drawing was probably made not far from five hun- 
dred years ago, when the umbrella was first introduced 
into England. Whether this gentleman and his ser- 
vant created as much merriment as Mr. Hanway did, 
I do not know; neither can I tell you why men from 
that time on did not continue to use the umbrella. 
If I were to make a "guess " about it, I should say 
that they thought it would not be " proper," for it was 




JX3KD OS' jTHE twenty-four UMBRELLAS' 



UMBRELLAS. Ill 

considered an unmanly thing to carry one until a hun 
dred years ago when the people of this country first 
began to use them. And it was not until twenty 
years later, say in the year 1800, that the " Yankees " 
began to make their own umbrellas. But since that 
time there have been umbrellas and umbrellas ! 
The word umbrella comes from the Latin word um- 
bra^ which means a " little shade ; " but the name, 
most probably, was introduced into the English lan- 
guage from the Italian word ombrella. Parasol means 
" to ward off the sun," and another very pretty name, 
not much used by Americans, for a small parasol, is 
" parasolette." 

It would be impossible for me to tell you how many 
umbrellas are made every year in this country. A 
gentleman connected with a large umbrella manu- 
factory in the city of Philadelphia gave me, as his 
estimate, 7,000,000. 

This would allow an umbrella to about one per- 
son in six, according to the census computation which 
places the population of the United States at 40,000,- 
000 of people. And one umbrella for every six per- 
rons is cetainly not a very generous distribution. 
Added to the number made in this country, are about 
one-half million which are imported, chiefly from 
France and England. 



I 12 UMBRELLAS. 

You who have read " Robinson Crusoe," remember 
how he made his umbrella and covered it with skins, 
and that is probably the most curious umbrella you 
can anywhere read about. Then there have been um- 
brellas covered with large feathers that would shed 
rain like a "duck's back," and umbrellas with cover- 
ings of oil-cloth, of straw, of paper, of woollen stuffs, 
until now, nearly all umbrellas are covered either 
with silk, gingham, or alpaca. And this brings 
us to the manufacture of umbrellas in Philadelphia, 
where there are more made than in any other city 
in America. 

If you will take an umbrella in your hand and ex- 
amine it, you will see that there are many more dif- 
ferent things used in making it than you at first 
supposed. 

First, there are the *'stick," made of wood, " ribs," 
"stretchers" and "springs" of steel ; the " runner " 
" runner notch," the ' ferule," '■ cap," "bands" and 
" tips " of brass or nickel ; then there are the cov- 
ering, the runner "guard" which is of silk or 
leather, the " inside cap," the oftentimes fancy han 
die, which may be of ivory, bone, horn, walrus tusk. 
or even mother-of-pearl, or some kind of metal, and, 
if you will look sharply, you will find a rivet put in 
deftly here and there. 



UMBRELLAS. 



113 



P^or the " sticks " a great variety of wood is used ; 
although all the wood must be hard, firm, tough, and 
capable of receiving both polish and staining. The 
cheaper sticks are sawed out of plank, chiefly, of 




maple and iron 
" turned " ( that is 
ished and stained, 
not very long ago, 
from England, 
changed, and we 
a part of our own 
sists principally of 




A ■■ DUCK'S 
BACK " UMBRELLA. 



wood. They are then 
made round), pol- 
The "natural sticks," 
w^ere all imported 
But that has been 
now send England 
supply, which con- 
hawthorne and 



huckleberry, which come from New York and New 
Jersey, and of oak, ash, hickory, and wild cherry. 

If you were to see these sticks, often crooked and 
gnarled; with a piece of the root left on, you would 



114 UMBRELLAS. 

think they would make very shabby sticks for um 
brellas. But they are sent to a factory where they 
are steamed and straitened, and then to a carver, 
who cuts the gnarled root-end into the image of a 
dog or horse's head, or any one of the thousand and 
one designs that you may see, many of which are ex- 
ceedingly ugly. The artist has kindly made a pict- 
ure for you of a " natural " stick just as it is brought 
from the ground where it grows, and, then again, the 
same stick after it has been prepared for the um- 
brella. 

Of the imported " natural " sticks, the principal 
are olive, ebony, furze, snakeweed, pimento, cinna- 
mon, partridge, and bamboo. Perhaps you do not 
understand that a "natural" stick is one that has 
been a young tree, having grown to be just large 
enough for an umbrella stick, when it was pulled up, 
root and all, or with at least a part of the root. If, 
when you buy an umbrella that has the stick bent 
into a deep curve at the bottom for the handle, you 
may feel quite sure that it is of partridge wood, which 
does not grow large enough to furnish a knob for a 
handle, but, when steamed, admits of being bent. 

The "runner," "ferule," "cap," "band," etc., 
form what is called umbrella furniture and for these 
articles there is a special manufactory. Another manu- 



UMBRELLAS. 



"5 



factory cuts and grooves wire of steel into the "ribs" 
and "stretchers." Formerly 
ribs were made out of cane or 
whalebone ; but these mate- 
rials are now seldom used. 
When the steel is grooved, 
it is called a " paragon " 
frame, which is the lightest 
and best made. It was in- 
vented by an Englishman 
named Fox, seventeen or 
eighteen years ago. The 
latest improvement in the 
manufacture of " ribs " is to 
give them an inv/ard curve 
at the bottom, so that they 
will fit snugly around the 
stick, and which dispenses 
with the '' tip cup," — a cup-' 
shaped piece of metal that 
closed over the tips. 

Of course we should all like to feel that we Ameri- 
cans have wit enough to make everything used in 
making an umbrella. And so we have in a way ; but 
it must be confessed that most of the silk used for 
umbrella covers, is brought from France. Perhaps 




AN UMBRELLA IIANDLK 

ail natnrel. 



i6 



UMBRELLAS. 



if the Cheney Brothers who live at South Manchester in 

Connecticut, and 
manufacture 
such elegant silk 
for ladies' dress- 
es, and such 
lovely scarfs and 
cravats for chil- 
dren, were to try 
and make um- 
brella silk, we 
would soon be 
able to say to the 
looms of France, 
" No more um- 
brella silk for 
America, thank 
you ', we are able 
to supply our 
own ! " 
But the" Yank- 
ees" do make 
CUTTING THB COVERS. all thcit umbrcl- 

la gingham, which is very nice. And one gingham fac- 
tory that I have heard about has learned how to dye 
gingham such a fast black, that no amount of rain or 




UMBRELLAS. II7 

sun changes the color. The gingham is woven into 
various widths to suit umbrella frames of different 
size, and along each edge of the fabric a border is 
formed of large cords. As to alpaca, a dye-house is 
being built, not more than a " thousand miles " from 
Philadelphia on the plan of English dye-houses, so 
that our home-made alpacas may be dyed as good 
and durable a black as the gingham receives; for 
although nobody minds carrying an old umbrella, 
nobody likes to carry a faded one. Although there 
are umbrellas of blue, green and buff, the favorite 
hue seems to be black. 

And now that we have all the materials together to 
make an umbrella, let us go into a manufactory and 
see exactly how all the pieces are put together. 

First, here is the stick, which must be " mounted." 
By that you must understand that there are two 
springs to be put in, the ferule put on the top end, 
and if the handle is of other material than the stick, 
that must be put on. 

The ugliest of all the work is the cutting of the 
slots in which the springs are put. These are first cut 
by a machine ; but if the man who operates it is not 
careful, he will get some of his fingers cut off. But 
after the slot-cutting machine does its work, there is 
yet something to be done bv another man with a 



ii8 



UMBRELLAS. 



knife before 'the spring can be put in. After the 
springs are set, the ferule is put on, and when natural 
sticks are used, as all are of different sizes, it requires 




FINISHING THE HANDLE. 

considerable time and care to find a ferule to fit 
the stick, as well as in whittling off the end of the 
stick to suit the ferule. And before going any farther 



UMBRELLAS. II9 

you will notice tliat all the counters in the various 
work-rooms are carpeted. The carpet prevents tlie 
polished sticks from being scratched, and the dust 
from sticking to the umbrella goods. 

After the handle is put on the stick and a band 
put on for finish or ornament, the stick goes to the 
frame-maker, who fastens the stretchers to the ribs, 
strings the top end of the ribs on a wire which is 
fitted into the " runner notch ; " then he strings the 
lower ends of the " stretchers " on a wire and fastens 
it in the " runner," and then when both " runners " 
are securely fixed the umbrella is ready for the cover. 

As this is a very important part of the umbrella, 
several men and women are employed in making it. 
In the room where the covers are cut, you will at first 
notice a great number of V shaped things hanging 
against the wall on either side of the long room. 
These letter Vs are usually made of wood, tipped all 
around with brass or som'e other fine metal, and are 
of a great variety of sizes. They are the umbrella 
cover patterns, as you soon make out. To begin with, 
the cutter lays his silk or gingham very smoothly 
out on a long counter, folding it back and forth until 
the fabric lies eight or sixteen times in thickness, 
the layers being several yards in length. (But I must 
go back a little and tell you that both edges of the 



T20 UMBRELLAS. 

silk, or whatever the cover is to be, has been hemmed 
by a woman, on a sewing machine before it is spread 
out on the counter). Well, when the cutter finds that 
he has the silk smoothly arranged, with the edges 
even, he lays on his pattern, and with a sharp knife 
quickly draws it along two sides of it, and in a 
twinkling you see the pieces for perhaps two um- 
brellas cut out ; this is so when the silk, or material, 
is sixteen layers thick and the umbrella cover is to 
have but eight pieces. 

After the cover is cut, each piece is carefully ex- 
amined by a woman to see that there are no holes 
nor defects in it, for one bad piece would spoil a 
whole umbrella. 

Then a man takes the pieces and stretches the 
cut edges. This stretching must be so skilfully done 
that the whole length of the edge be evenly stetched. 
This stretching is necessary in order to secure a good 
fit on the frame. 

After this the pieces go to the sewing-room, where 
they are sewed together by a woman, on a sewing- 
machine, in what is called a "pudding-bag" seam. 
The sewing-machine woman must have the machine- 
tension just right or the thread of the seam will 
break when the cover is stretched over the frame. 

The next step in the work is to fasten the cover ro 




SEWING " PUDDING- BAG " SEAMS. 



UMBRELLAS. 1^3 

the frame, which is done by a woman. After the 
cover is fastened at the top and bottom, she half 
hoists the umbrella, and has a small tool which she 
uses to keep the umbrella in that position, then she 
fastens the seams to the ribs ; and a quick work- 
woman will do all this in five minutes, as well as sew 
on the tie, which has been made by another pair of 
hands. Then the cap is put on and the umbrella is 
completed. 

But before it is sent to the salesroom, a woman 
smooths the edge of the umbrella all around with a 
warm flat-iron. Then another woman holds it up to 
a window where there is a strong light, and hunts for 
holes in it. If it is found to be perfect the cover is 
neatly arranged about the stick, the tie wrapped 
about it and fastened, and the finished umbrella goes 
to market for a buyer. 

After the stick is mounted, how long, think you 
does it take to make an umbrella? 

Well, my dears — it takes only fifteen minutes! 

So you see that in the making of so simple an 
every-day article as an umbrella, that you carry on a 
rainy day to school, a great many people are em- 
ployed ; and to keep the world supplied with umbrel- 
las thousands and thousands of men and women are 



124 



UMBRELLAS. 



kept busy, and in this way they earn money to buy 
bread and shoes and fire and frocks for the dear 
little folks at home, who in turn may some day be- 
come umbrella makers themselves. 




HOW FISH-HOOKS ARE 

MADE. 

13 OYS, how long do you suppose it would take 
-*— ^ you to make a respectable lish-hook? What do 
you suppose it would cost you to have a first-class 
workman make you one as good as one you can buy 
for a penny ? 

But I saw a magical little machine, not long ago, 
bite off a little piece of steel wire, chew it a moment, 
and then spit it out formed^ into a perfect hook. It 
would toss out these little hooks every half second, 
the different machines making the different sizes. 

There are eight steps in the making of a fish-hook 
by the machines I saw. The boy who tended one of 
them snatched specimens from the machine as they 
were passing through, and showed me how each 
stroke of the little chisels and hammers added to the 



26 



HOW FISH-HOOKS ARE MADE. 



bit of wire that went in, until it came out a finished 
hook and ready to fish with, though probably the 
more fastidious fish wouldn't touch it because it 
hadn't yet been polished. 

The curious little machines would first nip off bits 
of wire ; another stroke of the machine, and the bit 
of wire had a little loop in one end (fig. 2). The next 

999990 o 



f f \ 



\j 



half second the wire had a hack in it near the other 
end (fig. i). Then came a little hammer-stroke which 
flattened out the hacked end like fig. 4. Then a 
little chisel shaved this flattened end into a point 
(fig. 5). Then finishing tools shaped down the sides 
of the point (figs. 6 and 7, though we cannot show 
it plainly). And last of all, it receives one crook, and 



HOW FISH-HOOKS ARE MADE. 1 27 

drops, a perfectly formed hook, into the little bucket, 
having been, only four seconds before, nothing but an 
inch or more of steel wire on a reel. 

There are two ways of finishing these hooks. 
Either they are "japanned," which gives them the 
black finish which is the most common one, or they 
are finished with that fine blue that is frequently put 
upon swords and cutlery. It is done by heating them 
in a furnace till they come to a "cherry-red" as the 
workmen call it, and then they are poured into a 
bucket of oil and left to cool. 

After finishing, they are taken up to the deft- 
fingered girls, who rapidly count them by hooking 
them over a piece of coarse wire, and throwing out 
at the same time the imperfect ones. Then they 
pack them in neat boxes, and they are stacked up 
ready for market. 

But I suppose this is only the tamest part of the 
history of these murderous little objects. How many 
of them do you suppose will ever hook a fish ? Maybe 
one in a hundred. Perhaps not one in five hundred. 
How many of them will slumber, the sport of the 
fishes, imbedded in some old log at the bottom of 



128 HOW FISPI-HOOKS ARE MADE. 

some pool or river where they have stuck and stuck, 
though tui^ged at and twitched at by the luckless 
little boy who hasn't caught anything 3^et, and who 
hasn't another to fasten on in their place ! How 
many weary miles they must go, some of them, with 
hungry, wet, tired little fellows (and perhaps big 
fellows too), innocent of any fish, and in having had 
no bites save from mosquitos. But here and there 
one shall thrust point and barb into some fish who 
with more appetite than discretion has failed to see 
the trap set for him, and out and up into the air has 
rushed, "his silver armor flashing useless in the sun," 
to make a supper for the lucky fisherman. 



PAUL AND THE COMB- 
MAKERS. 



LITTLE Paul Perkins — Master Paul his uncle 
called him — did not feel happy. But for the 
fact that he was a guest at his uncle's home he might 
have made an unpleasant exhibition of his unhappi- 
ness ; but he was a well-bred city boy, of which fact he 
was somewhat proud, and so his impatience was vented 
in snapping off the teeth of his pocket-combs, as he 
sat by the window and looked out into the rain. 

It was the rain which caused his discontent. Only 
the day before his father, going from New York to 
Boston on business, had left Paul at his uncle's, some 
distance from the " Hub," to await his return. It 
being the lad's first visit, Mr. Sanford had arranged 
a very full programme for the next day, including a 
trip in the woods, fishing, a picnic, and in fact quite 



I30 



PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 



enough to cover an ordinary week of leisure. Over 
and over it had been discussed, the hours, for each 
feature apportioned, and through the night Paul had 




,<A 



S^^^^i^- 



MASTER PAUL DID NOT FEEL HAPPY. 



lived the programme over in his half-waking dreams. 

And now that the eventful morning had come, it 

brought a drizzling, disagreeable storm, so that Mr. 



PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 13I 

Sanford, as he met his nephew, was constrained to 
admit that he did not know what they should find to 
supply the place of the spoiled programme. 

" And my little nephew is so disappointed that he 
has ruined his pretty comb, into the bargain," said 
the uncle. 

" I was — was trying to see what it was made of," 
Paul stammered, thrusting the handful of teeth into 
his coat pocket. " I don't see how combs are made. 
Could you make one, uncle ? " 

"I never made one," Mr. Sanford replied, "but I 
have seen very many made. There is a comb-shop 
not more than a half-mile away, and it is quite a curi- 
osity to see how they make the great horns, rough 
and ugly as they are, into all sorts of dainty combs 
and knicknacks." 

" What kind of horns, uncle ? " 

" Horns from all parts of the country, Paul. This 
shop alone uses nearly a million horns a year, and 
they come in car-loads from Canada, from the great 
West, from Texas, from South America, and from the 
cattle-yards about Boston and other Eastern cities." 

" You don't mean the horns of common cattle ? " 

" Yes, Paul ; all kinds of horns are used, though 
some are much tougher and better than others. The 



132 PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 

cattle raised in the Eastern, Middle and Western 
States furnish the best horns, and there is the curious 
difference that the horns of six cows are worth no 
more than those of a single ox. Many millions of 
horn combs are made every year in Massachusetts ; 
perhaps more than in all the rest of the country. If 
} ou like we will go down after breakfast and have a 
look at the comb-makers." 

Paul was pleased with the idea, though he would 
much rather have passed the day as at first proposed. 
He was not at all sorr}-^ that he had broken up his 
comb, and even went so far as to cut up the back 
with his knife, wondering all the while how the 
smooth, flat, semi-transparent comb had been pro- 
duced from a rough, round, opaque horn. 

By and by a mail stage came rattling along, 
without any passengers, and Mr. Sanford took his 
nephew aboard. They stopped before a low, strag- 
gling pile of buildings, located upon both sides of a 
sluggish looking race-way which supplied the water 
power, covered passage-ways connecting different 
portions of the works. 

" Presently, just over this knoll," said his uncle, 
-' you will see a big pile of horns, as they are unloaded 
from the cars." 



PAUL AND THE COM I'.-MAKES. 135 

They moved around the knoll, and diere lay a 
monstrous pile of horns thrown indiscriminately to- 
gether. 

" Really there are not so many as we should 
think," said Mr. Sanford, as Paul expressed his as- 
tonishment. "That is only a small portion of the 
stock of this shop. I will show you a good many 
more.'' 

He led the way to a group of semi-detached 
buildings in rear of the principal works, and there 
Paul saw great bins of horns, the different sizes and 
varieties carefully assorted, the total number so vast 
that the immense pile in the open yard began to look 
small in contrast. 

At one of the bins a boy was loading a wheel- 
barrow, and when he pushed his load along a plank 
track through one of the passage-ways Mr. Sanford 
and his nephew followed. As the passage opened 
into another building, the barrow was reversed audits 
load deposited in a receptacle a few feet lower. 

In this room only a single man was employed, and 
the peculiar character of his work at once attracted 
the attention of Paul. In a small frame before him 
was suspended a very savage-looking circular saw, 
running at a high rate of speed. The operator caught 



136 



PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 



one of the great horns by its tip, gave it a turn through 
the air before his eyes, seized it in both hands and 




THE NEW CIRCLE COMB, 



applied it to the saw. With a sharp hiss the keen 
teeth severed the solid tip from the body of the horn, 



PAUL AND Tl.E COMB-MAKERS. 137 

and another movement trimmed away the thin, im- 
perfect parts about the base. The latter fell into a 
pile of refuse at the foot of the frame, the tip was 
cast into a box with others ; the horn, if large, was 
divided into two or more sections, a longitudinal slit 
sawn in one side, and the sections thrown into a 
box. 

"This man," said Mr. Sanford, "receives large 
pay and many privileges, on account of the danger 
and unpleasant nature of his task. He has worked 
at this saw for about forty years, and in that time has 
handled, according to his record, some twenty-five 
millions of horns, or over two thousand for every 
working day. He has scarcely a whole finger or 
thumb upon either hand — many of them are entirely 
gone ; but most of these were lost during his appren- 
ticeship. The least carelessness was rewarded by 
the loss of a finger, for the saw cannot be protected 
with guards, as in lumber-cutting." 

Paul watched the skilful man with the closest in- 
terest, shuddering to see how near his hands passed 
and repassed to the merciless saw-teeth as he sent a 
ceaseless shower of parts of horns rattling into their 
respective boxes. Before he left the spot Paul took 
a pencil and made an estimate. 



138 PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 

" Why, uncle," he said, " to cut so many as that, 
he must saw over three horns every minute for ten 
hours a day. I wouldn't think he could handle therp 
so fast." 

Then, as he saw how rapidly one horn after another 
was finished, he drew forth his little watch and found 
that the rugged old sawyer finished a horn every tei? 
seconds with perfect ease. 

" Would you like to learn this trade ? " the old 
fellow asked. He held up his hands with the stumps 
of fingers and thumbs outspread; but Paul only 
laughed and followed his uncle. 

They watched a boy wheeling a barrow-load of the 
horns as they came from the saw, and beheld them 
placed in enormous revolving cylinders, through 
which a stream of water was running, where they 
remained until pretty thoroughly washed. Being re- 
moved from these, they were plunged into boilers 
ranged along one side of the building, filled with hot 
water. 

" Here they are heated," said Mr. Sanford, " to 
clear them from any adhering matter that the cold 
water does not remove, and partially softened, ready 
for the next operation." 

From the hot water the horns were changed to a 




Ancient or Modern — Which? 



PAUL AND THE COIMB-MAKERS. 14I 

series of similar caldrons at the other side of the 
room, filled with boiling oil. Paul noticed that when 
the workmen lifted the horns from these vats their 
appearance was greatly changed, being much less 
opaque, and considerably plastic, opening readily at 
the longitudinal cut made by the saw. As the horns 
were taken from the oil they were flattened by un- 
rolling, and placed between strong iron clamps which 
were firmly screwed together, and put upon long 
tables in regular order. 

" Now I begin to see how it is done," Paul said, 
though he was thinking all the time of questions that 
he would ask his uncle when there were no workmen 
by to overhear. 

"The oil softens the horn," said Mr. Sanford, " and 
by placing it in this firm pressure and allowing it to 
remain till it becomes fixed, the whole structure is so 
much changed that it never rolls again. Some combs, 
you will notice, are of a whitish, opaque color, like 
the natural horn, while others have a smooth appear- 
ance, are of amber color, and almost transparent. 
The former are pressed between cold irons and 
placed in cold water, while the others are hot-pressed, 
it being ' cooked ' in a few minutes. These plates 
of horn may be colored ; and there are a great many 



142 PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 

' tortoise-shell ' combs and other goods sold which are 
only horn with a bit of color sprinkled upon it. 

"The solid tips of the horns, and all the pieces that 
are worth anything cut off in making the combs, are 
made up into horn jewelry, chains, cigar-holders, 
knife-handles, buttons, and toys of various kinds. 
These trinkets are generally colored more or less, 
and many a fashionable belle, I suppose, would be 
surprised to know the amount of money paid for odd 
bits of horn under higher sounding names. But the 
horn is tough and serviceable, at any rate, and that 
is more than can be said of many of the cheats 
we meet with in life." 

The next room, in contrast with all they had passed 
through previously, was neat and had no repulsive 
odors. Here the sheets of liorn as they came from 
the presses were first cut by delicate circular saws 
into blanks of the exact size for the kind of combs 
to be made, after which they were run through a 
planer, which gave them the proper thickness. 

" What do you mean by ' blanks ' ? " Paul asked, 
as his uncle used the term. 

"You can look in the dictionary to find its ex- 
act meaning."' was the answer. " But you will see 
what it is in practice at this machine." 




"in some remote corner of SPAIN." 



PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 1 45 

They stepped to another part of the room ; 
and here Paul saw the "blanks'' placed in the 
cutting-machine standing over a hot furnace, where, 
after being softened by the heat, they were slowly 
moved along, while a pair of thin chisels danced 
up and down, cutting through the centre of the blank 
at each stroke. When it had passed completely 
through, an assistant took the perforated blank and 
pulled it carefully apart, showing two combs, with 
the teeth interlaced. After separation they were 
again placed together to harden under pressure, when 
the final operations consisted of bevelling the teeth 
on wheels covered with sandpaper, rounding the 
backs, rounding and pointing the teeth ; after which 
came the polishing, papering and putting in boxes. 

" I suppose they go all over the country," said 
Paul as he glanced into the shipping-room. 

" Much further than that," was the reply. " We 
never know how far they go ; for the wholesale 
dealers, to whom the combs are shipped from the 
manufactory, send them into all the odd corners of 
the earth. Every little dealer must sell combs, and 
in the very nature of the business they frequently 
pass through a great many hands before reaching the 
user, so at the last price is many times what the 



146 PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 

makers received for them. I suppose it often hap- 
pens that horns which have been sent thousands of 
miles to work up are returned to the very regions 
from which they came, in some other form, in- 
creased very many fold in value by their long jour- 
ney. Or a horn may come from the remoter parts 
of South America to be wrought here in Massa- 
chusetts, and then be shipped from point to 
point till it reaches some remote corner of Africa, 
Spain, or Siberia, as an article of barter. And 
even different parts of the same horn may be at the 
same moment decking the person of a New York 
dandy and unsnarling the tangled locks of a Russian 
Tchuktch." 

While Paul was watching the deft fingers of 
the girls who filled the boxes and affixed the 
labels, his uncle stepped through a door communi- 
cating with the office, and soon returned with 
three elegant pocket-combs. 

" One of these," he said, "represents a horn which 
came irom. pampas of Buenos Ayres ; this one, in the 
original, dashed over the boundless plains of Texas ; 
and here is another, toughened by the hot, short 
summers and long, bitter winters of Canada. Take 
them with you in memory of this cheerless rainy day." 



PAUL AND THE COMB-MAKERS. 1 47 

Paul could not help a little sigh as he thought 
again of the pleasures he had enjoyed in anticipation ; 
but still he answered bravely, " Thank you ; never 
mind the rain, dear uncle. All the New York boys 
go off in the wood,s when they get away from home ; 
but not many of them ever heard how combs are 
made, and I don't suppose a quarter of them even 
know what they are made of. I can tell them a 
thing or two when I get home." 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

PHILIP and Kitty were curled up together on the 
lounge in the library, reading Aldrich's "Story of 
a Bad Boy." It was fast growing dark in the corner 
where they were, for the sun had gone down some 
time before, but they were all absorbed in Tom 
Bailey's theatricals, and did not notice how heavy the 
shadows were getting around them. Papa came in 
by-and-by. 

"Why, little folks, you'll spoil your eyes reading 
here ; I'd better light the gas for you," and he took 
out a match from the box on the mantle. 

" O, let me, please," cried Philip, jumping up and 
running to the burner. So he took the match, and 
climbed up in a chair with it. Scr-a-tch ! and the 
new-lit jet gave a glorified glare that illuminated every- 
thing in the room, from the Japanese vase on the 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 1 49 

corner bucket to the pattern of the rug before the 
open fire. But as PhiHp turned it off a little it grew 
quieter, and finally settled down into a steady, 
respectable flame. Philip always begged to light the 
gas. It had not been long mtroduced in the little 
town where he lived, and the children thought it a 
very fine thing to have it brought into the house, and 
secretly pitied the boys and girls whose fathers had 
only kerosene lamps. 

" Why can't you blow out gas, just as you do a 
kerosene light ? " asked Kitty, presently, leaving the 
Bad Boy on the lounge, and watching the bright little 
crescent under the glass shade. 

"Because," explained papa, "unless you shut it 
off by turning the little screw in the pipe, the gas 
will keep pouring out into the room all the time, and 
if it isn't disposed of by being burned up, it will mix 
with the air and make it poisonous to breathe. A 
man at the hotel here, a few nights ago, blew out the 
gas because he did not know any better, and was 
almost suffocated before he realized the trouble and 
opened his window." 

" And where does the gas come from in the first 
place ? " pursued Kitty 

"Why, from the gas-works, of course," said Philip 
in a very superior way, for he was a year the elder of 



150 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

the two. " That brick building over by Miller's Hill 
— don't you know — that we pass in going to Aunt 
Hester's." 

" I know that as well as you do, Philip Lawrence," 
said Kitty with some dignity. " What I wanted to 
know was what it's made out of. What is it, papa .? " 

"Out of coal," said papa. "They put the coal in 
ovens and heat it till the gas it contains is separated 
from the other parts of the coal, and driven off by 
itself. Then it is purified and made ready for use. 

" Out of coal ? How funny ! I wish I could see all 
about it," said Philip, looking more interested. 

" And so do I wish I could," added Kitty. 

" I don't see why it cannot be done," said papa. 
" If you really care to see it, and won't mind a few 
bad smells, I will ask Mr. Carter to-morrow morning, 
when he can take you around and explain things." 

The next day when Mr. Carter was asked about it, 
he said, " O, come in any day you like. About three 
in the afternoon would be a good time, because we 
are always newly-filling the retorts then." This 
sounded very nice and imposing to the children, and 
at three the next afternoon they started out with 
papa. The gas-house certainly did smell very badly 
asthey drew near it, and dainty Kitty sniffed in con- 
siderable di.sgust. Philip suggested that perhaps she 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 15 1 

liad better not go in after all ; he didn't believe girls 



BmmmmmmmmjsmmaB 


I^S^^^M 


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mW'^M 


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I^^^^^^^^^^Qm 


%^->JS^m 


H 


^^^^■H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^'^^l^M 


b f^ "^/I'-^'^-^^'^^^B 


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A Retort. 

ever did go into such places. And upon that Kitty 



152 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

valiantly declared she did not mind it a bit, and 
sternly set her face straight. 

Mr. Carter met them at the door. "You are just 
in time to see the retorts opened," said he, and led 
the way directly into a large and very dingy room, 
along one side of which was built out a sort of huge 
iron cupboard with several little iron doors. The 
upper ones were closed tight, but some of the lower 
ones were open a crack, and a very bright fire could 
be seen inside. Everything around was dirty and 
gloomy, and these gleams of fire from the little iron 
doors made the place look weird and ghostly. Long 
iron pipes reached from each of the upper doors up 
to one very large horizontal pipe or cylinder near the 
ceiling overhead. This cylinder ran the whole length 
of the room, and, at its farther end, joined another 
iron pipe which passed through the wall. 

"Those are the furnace-doors down below," said 
Mr. Carter to the children. " What you see burning 
inside of them is coke. Coke is what is left of the 
coal after we have taken the gas and tar out of it. 
The upper doors open into the retons, or ovens, that 
we fill every five hours with the coal from which we 
want to get gas. Each retort holds about two hun- 
dred pounds, and from that amount we get a thousand 
cubic feet of gas." 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. T53 

" Is it just common coal ; " asked Kitty, " like 
what people burn in stoves ? " 

" Not exactly. It is a softer kind, containing more 
of a substance called hydrogen than the sorts that 
are generally used for fuel. Several different vari- 
eties are used : ' cherry,' ' cannel,' ' splint,' and so 
on, and they come from mines in different parts of 
England and Scotland, chiefly. Glasgow, Coventry 
and Newcastle send us a great deal." 

Philip started as if a bright idea had struck him. 
" Is that what people mean when you're doing some- 
thing there's no need of, and they say * you're carry- 
ing coals to Newcastle ? ' " 

"Yes. You see such an enterprise would be 
absurd. Just notice the man j^onder with the long 
iron rod ! He is going to open one of the retorts, 
take out the old coal — only it is now coke — and 
put in a fresh supply." 

A workman in a grimy, leather apron loosened one 
of the retort doors, and held up a little torch. Im- 
mediately a great sheet of flame burst out, and then 
disappeared. 

He took the door quite off, and there was a long, 
narrow oven with an arched top, containing a huge 
bed of red-hot coals. 



154 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

"What a splendid place to pop corn ! " exclaimed 
Kitty. 

Papa laughed. " You would find it warm work," 
said he, " unless you'd a very long handle to your 
corn-popper." And Kitty thought so too, as she 
went nearer the fiery furnace. 

" You see," said Mr. Carter, " these red-hot coals 
have been changed a great deal by the heat. They 
have given up all their gas and tar, and are themselves 
no longer coal, but coke. We shovel out this coke 
and use it as fuel in the furnaces down below to help 
heat up the next lot. Then new coal is put into the 
retorts, and they are closed up with iron plates, like 
that one lying ready on the ground." 

" It's all muddy 'round the edge," observed Kitty, 

"Yes, that paste of clay is to make it air-tight. 
The heat hardens the clay very quickly, so all the 
little cracks around the edge are plastered up. When 
the coal is shut up in the ovens, or retorts, the heat, as 
I just told you, divides it up into the different sub- 
stances of which it is made 3 that is, into the coke 
which you have seen, a black, sticky liquid called tar, 
the illuminating gas, and more or less ammonia, 
sulphur, and other things that must be got rid of. 
Almost all these things are saved and used for one 
purpose or another, though they may be of no use to 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 1 55 

US here. If we have more coke than we ourselves 
need it is sold for fuel. The coal-tar goes for roofing 
and making sidewalks, or sometimes ( though you 
wouldn't think it possible, as you look at the sticky, 
bad-smelling, black stuff) in the manufacture of the 
most lovely dyes, like that which colored Miss Kitty's 
pink ribbon. The ammonia is used for medicine and 
all sorts of scientific preparations, in bleaching cloth, 
and in the printing of calicoes and cambrics." 

" When the materials of the coal are separated as 
I told you in the retorts, most of the tar remains 
behind, and is drawn off ; but some gets up the pipes. 
That large, horizontal cylinder is always nearly half 
full of it. The gas, which is very light, you know, 
rises through the upper pipes leading from the re- 
torts, and bubbles up through the tar in the bottom 
of the cylinder. Then it passes along the farther end 
of the cylinder, and into the condensing pipes." 

He opened a door, and !hey went through into the 
next room. Here the large pipe which came through 
the wall of the room they had just left, led to a 
number of clusters of smaller pipes that were jointed 
and doubled back and forth upon each other, cob- 
house fashion. 

"When the gas goes through these pipes," said Mr. 
Carter, "it gets pretty well cooled down, for the 



156 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

pipes are kept cold by having so great an amount of 
surface exposed to draughts of air around them. 
And when the gas is cooled the impurities are cooled 
too, so that many of them take a liquid form and can 
be drawn off." 

The next room they entered had a row of great, 
square chests on each side, as they walked through. 

"These are the purifiers," explained Mr. Carter 
again. " They are boxes with a great many fan-like 
shelves inside, projecting out in all directions, and 
covered thickly with a paste made of lime." 

" Lime like what the masons used when they plas- 
tered the new kitchen ? " asked Philip. 

" About the same thing. The boxes are made air- 
tight, and the gas enters the first box at one of the 
lower corners. Then before it can get through the 
connecting-pipe into the next box, it has to wind its 
way around among these plates coated with lime. 
This lime takes up the sulphur and other things that 
we do not want in the gas, and so by the time it gets 
through all the boxes it is quite pure and fit to use." 

Then the party all went into the room where the 
gas was measured. It was a little office with a queer 
piece of furniture in it ; something that looked like a 
very large drum-shaped clock, with several different 
dials or faces. This, Mr. Carter said, was the metre 




Kitty in the Gas-Works. 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 



159 



or measurer, and by looking at the dials it could be 
told exactly how much gas was being made every 
day. 

"As soon as the gas gets through the purifiers," 
said he, " it comes, by an iron pipe, in here, and is 
made to pass through and give an account of itself 
before any of it is used. And now I suppose you 
would like to know how it does report its own amount, 
wouldn't you ? " 

Philip and Kitty both were sure they did want to 
know, so he sketched a little plan of the metre on a 
piece of paper, and then went on to explain it : 

"This shows how the 
metre would look if you 
could cut it through in the 
middle. The large drum- 
shaped box A. A, is hollow, 
and filled a little more 
tjian half way up with 
water. Inside it is a 

smaller hollow drum, b, b. 

The Metre. go arranged as to turn 

easily from right to left, on the horizontal axis c. 
This axis is a hollow pipe by which the gas comes 
from the purifiers to enter the several chambers of 
the metre in turn, through small openings called 




l6o IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

valves. The partitions p. p. p. p. divide the drum b. 
B. into — let us say — four chambers, i, 2. 3, 4, all of 
the same size, and capable of holding a certain known 
amount of air or gas. The chamber i is now filled 
with gas, 3 with water, and 2 and 4 partly with gas 
and partly with water. The valves in the pipe c are 
so arranged that the gas will next pour into the cham- 
ber 2. This it does with such force as to completely 
fill it, lifting it quite out of the water and into the 
place that i had occupied before. Then as i is 
driven over to the place which 4 had occupied, the 
gas with which it was filled passes out by another 
pipe and oif to the large reservoir you will see by 
and by, its place being filled with water. At the same 
time 4 is driven around to the place of 3^ and 3 to 
that of 2. The water always keeps the same level, 
and simply waits for the chambers to come round and 
down to be filled. 

" Next, 3, being in the place of 2, receives its 
charge of gas from the entrance pipe, is in turn lifted 
up into the central position, and sends all the other 
chambers around one step further. And when the 
drum gets completely around once, so that the cham- 
bers stand in the same places as at first, you know 
each chamber must have been once filled with gas 
and then emptied of it. If then we know that each 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. l6l 

chamber will hold, say two and a half cubic feet of 
gas, we are sure that every time the drum has turned 
fully around it has received and sent off four times 
two and a half feet, or ten feet in all. Now we con- 
nect the axis c with a train of wheel-work, something 
like that in a clock, and this wheel-work moves the 
pointers on the dials in front, so that as the gas in 
passing in and out of the chambers turns the drum on 
the axis, it turns the dial pointers also. 

" The right hand dial marks up to one hundred. 
While its pointer is passing completely around once, 
the pointer on the next dial (which marks up to one 
thousand) is moving a short space and preserving the 
record of that one hundred ; and then the first 
pointer begins over again. The two pointers act 
together just like the minute and hour hands on a 
clock. Then the next dial marks up to ten thousand, 
and acts in turn like an hour-hand to the thousands' 
dial as a minute-hand, and 'so on. You see each 
dial has its denominations, 'thousands,' hundred 
thousands,' or whatever it may be, printed plainly 
below it. And now, when we want to read off the 
dials, we begin at the left, taking in each case the last 
number a pointer has passed^ and read towards the 
right, just as you have learned to do with any numbers 
in your ^ Eaton's Arithmetic' There is one thing 



1 62 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

more to remember, however ; the number you read 
means not simply so many cubic feet of gas but so 
many hundred cubic feet." 

Philip and Kitty immediately set to work to read 
the dials on the office metre, and found that they 
were not now so very mysterious. 

** But how do you know how much people use ? " 
asked Philip. " There is something like this metre, 
only smaller, down cellar at home, and a man came 
and looked at it the other day, to see how much gas 
had been burned in the house he said, when I asked 
him what he was going to do." 

"The metre you have at home works in the same 
way as this," said Mr. Carter, " and the dial-plates 
are read in the same way. But the gas that your little 
metre registers is only that which you take from the 
main supply-pipe, to light your parlors and bed-rooms. 

When a stream of gas from the main enters the 
house, it has to pass through the metre the very first 
thing, before any of it is used ; and each little metre 
keeps as strict an account of what passes through 
from the main to the burners, as the large one here 
in the office does of that which passes from the puri- 
fiers to the reservoir. But there is this difference 
between the two : the gas keeps pouring through the 
office metre as long as we keep making it in the re- 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 1 63 

torts, but it passes through your metre at home only 
just as long as you keep drawing it off at the burners. 
So if we find by looking at the metre that 5450 feet 
have passed through during a given time, we send in 
our bill to your papa for that amount, knowing it 
must have been burned in the house. 

" But most likely the metre doesn't say anything 
directly about 5450. It says, perhaps, 11025. ' How 
can that be ? ' you would think. ' We haven't burned 
so much as that,' and you haven't — during this one 
quarter. But after the metre had been inspected at 
the end of the last quarter, the pointers did not go 
back to the beginning of the dials and start anew ; 
they kept right on from the place where they were, 
so that 1 1 025 is the amount you paid for last time and 
the amount you want to pay for this time, lumped 
together. Now this is what we do. We turn to our 
books and see how much you were charged with last 
time, and substracting that record from the present 
record leaves the amount you have used since the last 
time of payment. 

" Then suppose another case. Your metre registers 
only as far as 100,000. At the end of the last quar- 
ter it marked 97850 ; now it records but 3175. How 
would you explain that, master Philip ? '' 

Philip looked puzzled a moment, and then said, 



164 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

*' I should think it must have finished out the hundred 
thousand and begun over again." . 

" Exactly. And to find the amount for this quarter 
you would add together the remainder of the hundred 
thousand (2150) and the 3175, and get 5325, the real 
record. But I guess you've had arithmetic enough 
for the present, so we'll go out now and see the gas- 
ometer, or gas reservoir.'' 

They all went out of doors then, papa, Mr. Carter, 
Philip and Kitty, across a narrow court-yard. There 
was a huge, round box, or drum, with sides as high 
as those of the carriage-house at home, but with 
no opening anywhere, " like a great giant's band- 
box," thought Kitty. Four stout posts, much taller 
still than the " bandbox " itself, were set at equal 
distances around it, and their extremities were joined 
by stout beams which passed across over the top of 
the gasometer. 

As the children went up nearer to it, they saw it 
was made of great plates of iron firmly riveted to- 
gether, and that it did not rest on the ground, as they 
had supposed, but in the middle of a circular tank of 
water. 

" After the gas has been made and purified and 
measured," said Mr. Carter, " it is brought by under- 
ground pipes into this gasometer, and from here 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 



165 



drawn off by other pipes into the houses. The 
weight of this iron shell bearing down upon the gas, 
gives pressure or force enough to drive the gas any- 
where we wish." 

" But why do you put the — the iron thing in 




£XJTrjF£ 



The Gasometke. 



water, instead of on the ground ? " asked Kitty. 

" So as to malie it air-tight, and give it a chance to 
move freely up and down. Of course if the iron 
shell were empty its own weight would make it sink 
directly to the bottom of the water-tank and stay 
there. But gas, you know, is so much lighter than 



1 66 IN THE GAS-WORKS. 

common air that it always makes a very strong eifort 
to rise higher and higher, carrying along whatever 
encloses it. You saw that illustrated in the balloon 
that went up last Fourth of July. Now, as the gas 
from the works pours hito the reservoir from beneath, 
it is strong enough to lift the iron box up a little in 
the water. Of course that gives a little m.ore room. 
Then as more gas comes in to take up this room, the 
gasometer keeps on rising slowly. We make sure of 
its not rising above the water and letting the gas leak 
out, by means of the beams you see stretched across 
above it. They are all ready to hold it down in a 
safe position if the need should come. 

" On the other hand, as the people in town draw off 
the gas to burn, the gasometer would, of course, tend 
to sink down gradually. So we have the water-tanks 
made deep enough to allow for every possible neces- 
sity in that direction. In very cold weather we keep 
the water from freezing by passing a current of hot 
steam into it. If it should ever freeze, the gasometer 
might as well be on the ground, for it could not move 
up and down, or be trusted to keep the gas from 
leaking out around the edges. With these precau- 
tions, however, we know it is perfectly trustworthy." 

" I saw it one morning early, when I was out coast- 
ing on the hill," said Philip, " and it wasn't more 
than half as high as it is now." 



IN THE GAS-WORKS. 167 

"A great deal had been drawn off during the night 
and we had not been making any more during the 
time to take its place. 

" Does it ever get burned out too much ? " 

" No, there's no danger of it. We make enough 
to allow a good large margin above what we expect 
will be used." 

The children looked about a little longer, and then, 
with good-byes and many thanks to Mr. Carter, walked 
home again with papa, over the crisp, hard snow. 

Next week Philip had a composition to write at 
school. He took " Gas " for his subject, and wrote : 

"Gas that you burn is made out of soft coal. 
They put it in Ovens and cook it until it is not coal 
any longer. The Ovens are so hot you cant go any- 
whare near them but the men do With poles and big 
lether aprons. I would not like to shovle in the coal. 
I would rather have a Balloon. They use two or 
three tons every day. it makes coke and Tar and the 
gas that goes up the pipes. They make the gas clean 
and mesure it in a big box of water, and tell how 
much there is by looking at the clock faces in front. 
Then it goes into a big round box made of iron and 
then we burn it. but I do not like to smell of it. 
you must not blow it out for if you do you will get 
choked. This is all I Remember about gas. 

" Philip Raymond Lawrence." 



THE WAY HE MADE THE 
FISHING-ROD 

IT is hardly to be expected that gins will be inter- 
ested in fishing- rods, but boys are — boys. And 
if there is one instinct that is earlier developed in 
them than another, it is to go a fishing: To be sure, 
the desperate desire to burn gunpowder in some 
way, to touch off a tiny cannon if possible, and at all 
events to fire India-crackers, comes very early ; but 
to fish with a bent pin at the end of a string, if noth- 
ing better offers, is the realization ot the small 
urchin's idea of a good time. To get dismissed 
" before school is done," or play truant and stay out 
altogether if he dares, or take liis half-holiday and 
trudge off to some place where water is — without 
his mother's knowledge, through a conviction that her 
consent could not be obtained if she knew — and fish 



\ 




THE LITTLE MAn'S EXPERIENCE OF HAPPINESS. 



THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 171 

all the afternoon with bits of dismembered grass 
hoppers for bait, and go home at sundown, wet and 
tired and muddy, and hot and hungry, with only one 
shoe on, and carrying two dried-up shiners strung on 
a forked twig — that is the little man's experience of 
happiness. 

There is something in the vagabondage of fishing, 
and more in the uncertainty about the result — the 
good luck or the no luck — which captivates the 
boy's fancy all along till he is boy no longer; and 
when he puts away his childish things he by no 
means includes this. Annually on the return of 
April, when the first "good day for trout to bite" 
comes round, " his sisters and his cousins and his 
aunts " are sure to be besieged by the questions : 
" Where are all my trout-lines ? What has become 
of my hooks? I should like to know — will anybody 
tell me — who has been meddling with my rod ! " 
And there is a sound of running up and down-stairs, 
and general rummaging till the things are found and the 
angler is out of the house. Nor does the matter end 
with trout ; for are there not pickerel and salmon and 
bass, and finny creatures of many names in many places ? 



172 THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 

But it is not of the fishers themselves, nor of their 
Hnes or their hooks, nor of what they catch, that this 
paper is to be written. About fishing and about fish, 
from a whale down to a sardine, how much has been 
said ! While as for the rods, except to the manufac- 
turers and users — who was ever especially interested 
in them ? Yet, for all that, a good deal might be 
told. Even so simple a thing as a rod of split bamboo 
has quite a history before it is ready equipped for 

service. 

A bamboo, be it said, can be put to more uses 
than any other thing of the vegetable kind in the 
world. What would our opposite neighbors in the 
Celestial Empire do without it ? It is employed for 
nearly every conceivable, besides some almost incon- 
ceivable purposes, on land and water, and even in the 
air ; for kites are made of it, and so are the queer 
little whistles bound to the tame pigeons to frighten 
crows from the grain-fields. It can be used in the 
whole cane, in strips, in segments, or in threads, and 
no part comes amiss. The tubes are suitable for 
water-pipes, and so it answers for aqueducts : it is 
so strong that foot-bridges are constructed of it, and 



THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 1 73 

light enough for rafts ; so available that a whole 
house can be built of it — the frame, the thatch, the 
lattices, the partitions — and it furnishes material for 
the tables and chairs, and some of the utensils and 
decorative articles ; it is so hard that knives are 
made from thin slices, and so delicate that it may be 
carved into daintiest of boxes, and even thimbles 
and necklaces ; so elastic that baskets are woven of 
it, so fibrous that it may be twisted into ropes and cord- 
age. It supplies lining for the chests of tea, strands 
for fishing-nets, strips for fans, and canes stifi enough 
for oars and spears and palanquin-poles. It is one 
of the four things without which China would be China 
no longer : rice for food, tea for drink, silk for wear, 
and bamboo for everything. 

There are said to be more than sixty varieties of this 
wonderful thing, which is neither grass nor tree, yet 
is in structure like grass, while it grows in dense 
groves, like trees, and shoots away up even to the height 
of a hundred and fifty feet, and is nothing after all but 
a hollow, jointed reed. 

The kind from which the fishing-poles are made 
comes from Calcutta ; and though we oftenest see 



174 THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 

it variegated by rich waves of brown, the natural 
color is buff, and those beautiful markings are 
acquired by fire, through which the natives pass 
the canes for the purpose of straightening them, 
and also to burn off the hairy sheath about the 
joints, and to kill any insects that may be harbored 
there. At least this is what one intelligent, observ- 
ing manufacturer told us ; while another said that the 
Orientals try different kinds of stain on them, and so 
diversify the surface which takes so easily a fine color 
and polish. Either account is well enough, and per- 
haps books of travel and encyclopaedias will give 
both. As they lie in piles in the shops they look 
dingy enough, although any one can see that the 
final polishing and varnishing will bring out the patches 
of rich brown and black we are so accustomed to, not 
only in the finished rods but in walking-sticks and 
umbrella-handles. They are imported in bunches 
of fifty, of irregular lengths, as the natives happened 
to cut them, from twelve to twenty-five feet, but 
averaging about eighteen ; and the first thing is to 
cull them over and select the good ones, which are then 



THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 1 75 

scraped and reduced to the proper lengths, and they 
are then ready to be split. 

Just here you may ask why it is necessary that 
a bamboo cane, which already looks as nearly ready 
for a fish-pole as if nature had made it on purpose 
for one, should be split into strands and then glued 
together. But this is done to secure strength with 
out adding to the weight ; and a very nice piece of 
work it is before the whole thing is completed. 

In Boston there is a factory where only this class 
of rods is made ; and in Cambridge there is a modest 
shop where one of the brightest of English artisans, 
who has also tried his hand at making bows for 
archery practice, works in this same line. 

Between the two places there is a good deal to 
be learned, and what one man did not tell us the 
other did. The process of splitting, however, which is 
the most interesting part, is a secret not to be revealed 
to outsiders. It was formerly done by hand ; but 
our British workman said he invented the first ma- 
chine ever used in the United States — and probably 
in any country — for splitting bamboo for fishing-rods. 
He was four years in perfecting it, and in the mean 



176 THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 

time his wife knit and crocheted articles from Shet- 
land wool to help support the family. "Without her 
I don't know where I would have been," he said. 
She came into the passage-way with one child in her 
arms and another clinging to her apron, and eyed us 
curiously while we listened to her good-man's story. 

A stack of the untouched canes stood in one 
corner, together with a few of the Chinese, which he 
showed us, that we might see the difference. " These 
be always buff," he remarked, " smoother, of another 
quality, not so elastic — another thing altogether." 
And then he illustrated his way of going to work, 
only we did not have a sight of the machine at all. 
" We split 'em," he said, " to make the rod stronger. 
The more strands, the more strength. Now look at 
this trout-pole. Just heft it. It is so light you can't 
hardly keep it down. But look at here. Look at the 
spring of it. Just bend it. Don't be afraid — it 
won't break. There ! you can almost bring it to- 
gether till end touches end. That is not heavier than 
a whip-handle. That is eleven feet and a half long, 
and it weighs eight ounces. But it will hold a mighty 
big trout. You see the weight is graduated so 



THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. I 77 

there is an even spring from butt to tip. Your 
trout is a strong fellow, likewise a sly one. You are 
never sure of him till you've landed him, and have 
him off the hook and in the basket, and the cover 
shut and the peg put in. And then you're not 
sure. He'll dodge you if he can." 

But about the splitting-machine ? 

"Yes. A bamboo will split like a whalebone 
from end to end, and the strength is all in the 
bark ; " and he split off that skin of silex which is 
so hard that fire will strike from it when the hatchet 
hits it as the natives are cutting down the canes. That 
marvellous flinty film into which all the holding 
power is packed, is only four one-thousandths of an 
inch in thickness (I put it down on the spot where 
I heard it, to be accurate, for it was too much or too 
little to trust one's memory with), and the texture of 
the wood is a bunch of coarse fibres that can be 
pulled apart like a hempen string. 

And did he always have six strands in the make- 
up of a rod ? One man had stated that a hexagon was 
the most perfect shape, " the most complete circle," 
wringing the strain equally on all parts, 



IjS THE WAY HE MADE THE EISHIXG-ROD. 

He said, " No : sometimes four, sometimes six, 
sometimes eight, as \ve please. But anyhow, it is 
always perfect. The taper is just exact clear along. 
We take the cane and give it to the machine, and she 
gives us back just the number of strands we ask for. 
And they are precisely alike to a hair. They can't 
vary. And when they come together they are an 
exact fit. There <rc7/// be a failure. She never makes 
a mistake. If there's a fault, it's mine and not hers." 

The next thing is to take the bunch of strands, 
place one end in a vise, grasp the other in the hand, 
and dipping a brush into a pot of hot glue ready on 
the bench, pass it swiftly between them, and then wind 
close with strong twine, which is left on till the' glue 
is thoroughly dried ; and the drying is purposely a 
slow process, that no strand may spring back from 
over-heating. At a proper time the cord is removed, 
and the rod is gently scraped clean from anything 
that may have adhered to it. The glue used is abso- 
lutely water-proof, and holds so tenaciously that if by 
any accident the rod should split, the fissure never fol- 
lows the joining, but the wood down the bark. It is as 
compact as if it were the closest and hardest of grain. 



■ THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHINCx-ROD. 1 79 

The rods are manufactured in sections, for con- 
venience in carrying, some being known as " trunk 
rods ; " but " the fewer the joints, the more pliable it 
is," he said, "and the less metal it has to contend 
with." Each section is finished with brass or German- 
silver ferrules into which the cane fits with mathemati- 
cal certainty ; and as these ferrules are sometimes 
" drawn," as they say, instead of being brazed, it is 
impossible that they should split. Every precaution 
is thus taken for strength, elasticity, nicety of adjust- 
ment and durability. Then the butt has a wooden 
dowel fitted in and glued, forming what is technically 
called the " reel-seat," where the reel or " pirn " 
for the line is to be secured ; and the place where the 
wood is bare and where it joins the cane is wound 
with a fine strand of bamboo-grass, which gives the 
swell to the handle. 

Next the little rings in which the line is to run are 
attached at intervals, graduated from a distance of 
ten inches down to three, and each has a metal 
"keeper" to hold it, and to help retain the ring in 
place ; and also, for ornament, a thread of the finest 
silk that is made is wound in bands about the rod : 



l8o THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING ROD. 

the colors are usually scarlet or purple, and this part 
of the work is done by a woman. 

" She fixes the spool on a spindle, lays the end of 
the silk on the rod, and gives it a twirl, j-*?," said our 
EngHsh friend ; " the next time round she covers the 
end, and when she breaks it off, she ties a knot, so, 
gives it another twirl and cuts the fibres off. But the 
last end of the silk would be sure to fray out as soon 
as it is wet, so we shellac it over, and that holds it 
down." 

So much painstaking down to the smallest matter! 
And now it is ready for the varnish, which is of a 
jDeculiar glassy kind, and is put on in a warm room 
where a frame stands ready to receive the sections 
which fit into "rests," where they remain a long time 
to dry. It takes about three months to get a rod of 
split bamboo through the several processes ready for 
the market. 

The wholesale trade is in the fall ; the retail begins 
about the first of April and lasts till the first of Sep- 
tember, and the work is done "between times." The 
Ught fly-rods for trout sell for from twenty to forty dol- 
("ars apiece ; then there are the bass-rods, and those foi 




SPRING FISHING. 



THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHINCx-ROD. 1 83 

salmon, made in three joints, weighing thirty-two 
ounces, with reels that hold four hundred yards of 
line, such as the Canadian anglers like; they are 
packed in wooden cases having compartments into 
which each piece fits, all lined with shaggy cloth, and 
furnished with an outer covering of the same material. 
With the fly-rod goes a "tip-case," containing two 
extra tips, as that slender section is liable to get 
broken. 

Much more, and in a better way than it is put down 
here, did the genial Englishman tell, as he balanced 
one of the delicate poles on his finger, and of his own 
experiences when he and Professor Agassiz used to 
go fishing together; for, said he, "Agassiz and me 
were intimate," as one could well believe, since there 
was such freshness about the man, and he had such 
a fund of practical inforrwation. Then iie spoke 
about the fly, and showed us one attached to the 
silvery thread which, he said, " they call silkworm 
gut." 

The fly was made of a few colored bits of feather 
" to attract the trout : this is from a canary ; that 
from a wild duck's breast ; and on the water the 



184 THE Way he made THE nSHING-ROi). 

motion makes 'em sure to expand and part and 
close like wings of a fly, deceiving the fish. Take 
care ! You did not see the hook inside. No more 
does the trout." 

And the silk ? 

" It comes from Italy, in a little hank like this;** 
and he held up a bunch of five shining things like 
silver hair, tied with crimson silk. " I never see no 
longer ones, nor larger. It is costly stuff. It comes 
at about four or five dollars a hundred. A single one 
of the best is worth ten cents. You can't see how we 
can tie two together ? There's a way. And there's 
a way to tie hair. We lap one end away by the other, 
and tie two knots and wet it, in this way; and the 
more it is soaked in water the tighter it will be, and 
nothing will ever make it come untied. No, it is 
never any longer. That is what comes from one 
worm. That's what they tell me. They hold the 
worm in a sort of mould, and draw out this thread. 
They finish it as we see it. I don't know how it's 
done, nor what time in the worm's life, or whether the 
worm is dead. 

But it seemed to me that I could guess too near the 



THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 187 

truth ; for I had seen too many silkworms not to fear 
that the poor creature was subject to this treatment 
while it was yet aUve. At the time when, being ready 
to spin its own beautiful cocoon, it had ceased to eat 
and become almost transparent, then it must have 
been that a cruel thing was done, — that the silvery 
web was drawn in the one lustrous line, and the little 
life extinguished with it. 

The places where the common rods are made are 
not of very much interest except as one likes to know 
about the different kinds of wood employed. The 
rods of whole bamboo or of ash have tips of horn 
beam, lancewood and greenheart, as being more 
compact and elastic and capable of bearing a 
heavier strain. 

The first comes from our own forests, but the otliers 
are foreign , the greenheart is from British Guiana, 
where it grows, a tapering stem without a branch till 
it seems to pierce the sky, and is as hard as lignum 
vitcE, and takes the most exquisite polish ; the other is 
from Jamaica, wonderfully suited for the uses which 
its name suggests. The bark is like that of the white 
ash, and the ends of some of the slender logs which 



iSS THE WAY HE MADE THE FISHING-ROD. 

lay in piles on the floor were cracked just as a Red 
Astrachian apple cleaves apart at the stem when it is 
dead-ripe; while others were yellow wdth the shellac 
which had been put on to prevent this damage. The 
making of fishing-rods seemed really entitled to an 
important place among the industries, when we found 
that so many regions must be traversed for materials, 
even the jungles of Hindostan, the wilds on the 
Amazon and the strange forests of the West Indian 
islands. 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 

IF it had been a yacht in which we were speeding 
along at the rate of a trifle over a mile per minute, 
we should have " taken our reckoning," " hove the 
log," or done something nautical, and the captain 
would doubtless have reported in regular sea-faring 
terms that we were off Oil City with Lake Chautauqua 
so and so many knots on our port quarter. 

But it wasn't a yacht, nor a schooner, nor a Lones- 
toga wagon, lightning express or catamaran, in which 
we were travelling neck ^d neck with one of the 
wildest looking storm clouds of hot mid-summer. 

No. It was — can you guess it ? Yes, a balloott. 

And this is how it all came about : 

Fourth of July came upon the fifth that year, (be- 
cause of some strange oversight on the part of the 
folks who first hit upon the plan of dividing time into 



190 RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 

weeks, somehow the Fourth will, every once in a 
while, strike Sunday.) 

At least it did in Cleveland ; and although they 
were a day late, the Clevelanders determined to have 
a big time. So they had sent for Prof. Samuel A. 
King, an aeronaut of distinction. Balloonists, you 
know, are nearly always called " Professors " — why 
this is so I don't profess to know. And Prof. King 
had arrived in Cleveland a few days before, bringing 
his great balloon, the " Buffalo." 

Early upon the morning of the 5th he was on hand 
with the helpless monster all in a heap tied about 
with ropes, mixed up with netting and sand-bags, and 
supplemented with a big basket which looked a good 
deal like an inverted straw hat made for some huge 
giant. 

The netting was carefully spread out on the Nich- 
olson pavement in the centre of the pretty square 
that you will remember if you have ever been in 
Cleveland. The bags were filled from a wagon-load 
of sand and hitched with snap-catches about the 
edges. So they stood about in a circle. Then the 
aerostat, as the great bag is called, was unrolled 
and spread evenly over this. An oiled-muslin tube 
was tied to the neck, and its other extreme to a gas 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM. I93 

main in a hole which some of the workmen had dug 
for the purpose. 

Next the gas was turned on. The bag began to 
rise, looking at first like ever so many young whales 
all huddled together. The men now began, under 
the Professor's direction, to pull the netting over to 
hold the bag down. The sand-bags were brought 
closer and set along on either side of the tube. The 
bag now began to grow round and plump. Groups of 
lookers-on kept growing, too, until all the square was 
alive with them. The helpers kept walking around 
the swelling globe, changing the bags to lower strands 
of the netting ; and so it continued until by two o'clock 
the balloon w^as full — that is, allowance was made 
only for expansion when the balloon should have 
reached the clouds. 

Every few moments the breeze would sway the 
monster to and fro, and it seemed chafing to break 
away. Soon after, the basket was tied upon the ring, 
and into this a great heap of sand-bags was piled, 
and a lot of ropes, an anchor, an aneroid, thermom- 
eter, compass and other accessories tied into the rig- 
ging or outside of the basket. 

How grandly she stood there, the vast dome tower- 
ing above the trees, her amber sides bright with dec- 



194 RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 

orations and her shapely globe held in leash by the 
white network — but bless me ! here's more than four 
pages used up, and we haven't started yet. 

At precisely four o'clock the Professor's cheery 
voice was heard all through the square as he sang 
out, " All aboard ! " And his eight companions re- 
sponded as soon as they could get through the dense 
crowd that surged on every side. 

Now the sole remaining rope which held us to the 
earth was gripped by a score of eager men. 

The order came, "Let go!" The basket was 
raised a few feet and then settled slowly back. This 
made the crowd laugh. 

" Throw out two bags ! " cried the Professor. 

Then — then how grandly we lifted ! How the can- 
non roared and bands added their noise to the shouts 
of the hundred thousand people whose faces were all 
turned toward our little wicker car ! 

The writer was sand-man, and following orders, he 
let out the contents of another bag which fell in 
a swift gray stream plump down into the midst of 
a little group of young ladies who were seated on 
a house-top. 

If it happens that this book reaches that family. 
opportunity is now taken to apologize to those young 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM. I95 

ladies for thus pouring sand down the backs of their 
necks. 

Well, we sailed along grandly, soon leaving the 
city far behind — I forgot to say that just as we 
were leaving, a darkey in a white apron came through 
the crowd bringing us a hamper of good things. 
What an appetite this keen upper air gave us, to be 
sure ! We ate and drank and toasted everything and 
everybody. 

Pretty soon one of the boys said, (we were all 
newspaper men, and spoke of each other as " boys " ) : 

" Listen a moment ! " 

And we all held our breaths. What supreme si- 
lence ! the gentle sighing of the wind among the trees 
a mile below, the barking of dogs, or subdued shouts 
of excited villagers, was all we could hear — but hark ! 

We were approaching a small town. In the square, 
through the gathering twilight, we could discern a 
crowd, and now there cam^to us, refined by distance, 
the familiar notes, played by the village band, of " Up 
m a balloon, boys ! '' 

We passed over the village, and the Professor 
pulled the valve cord gently, so we dropped towards 
the place and cheered in reply. 

" Now let's give them a song," said the Professor. 



9^ RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 



So he began, and we came in on the chorus : 



"Oh! 'twas old Sam Simons, 
And young Sam Simons, 

Old Sam Simons' son : 
Now young Sam Simons 
Is old Sam Simons, 

For old Sam Simons is gone." 

I wish the editor would only give me room to tell you 
about the scores of funny things that hapjDened that 
afternoon ; but after all, the real adventures happened 
the next day. So I can only speak briefly of the 
pretty carrier-pigeons we loosed, which flew swiftly 
back to Cleveland, bearing our messages to the news- 
papers — short notes only, to be sure, wrapped 
about their slender legs, and which appeared in the 
papers the following morning. One of these I find 
in the scrap-book before me, for it was returned to me 
some weeks afterwards. It reads : 

" IVe'fe just eaten supper out of our hamper, wthampered by 
any fears as to breakfast. Supper above the clouds is what I call 
high living. We can see you yet, but you are only a sitioky stain 
upon the shore of Lake Erie. The Professor says zve are to go 
into camp and then continue trip to-morrow. Good-night''' 

It would never do, either, to forget the plucky dog 







A i'LUCKV DOG 






RACING A THUNni<:R-S7V)RM. 199 

which ran after our drag-rope as it trailed along the 
ground when we were quite near the earth, and held 
on with his teeth though we pulled him along over 
the stubble on his back, and never let go until we 
had jerked him plumb over a fence. 

I've been in all sorts of camps — military camps, 
hunting camps and camp meetings, but never dreamed 
of such a thing as a ballooji camp before ! By the help 
of some farmers we filled the great basket with stones 
and then pitched a tent and made a fire at a safe dis- 
tance. Lines were run to trees in three directions, 
loosely to give the balloon " play " in case of much 
wind, and then we all lay down in our blankets and 
tried to sleep. 

At the very first signs of dawn we were up, and 
there she stood in the still air just like a vision. At 
sunrise a hospitable farnier invited us to breakfast, 
and wasn't it good ? I'll never forget that coffee. 

By eight o'clock quite a large number of country 
folks had reached the field. Teams were hitched all 
along the fences. Now the Professor announced that 
as he wished to make a long trip that day, he should 
carry plenty of ballast and so could allow only two 
persons with him. It had been agreed that we should 
draw cuts, and this was done good-naturedly. The 



200 RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 

choice fell upon a photographer, and the writer. 

We were sorry indeed to leave our companions be- 
hind us, but there was no help for it. So we took our 
seats in the basket, said good-by, and were off. 

Now we went up ! up ! up ! passing through a thin 
cloud that made everything below look dim and dis- 
tant. We were in the region where November spends 
the swtimer. Whew ! how chilly it was. We wrapped 
our overcoats and blankets close about us and our 
teeth chattered. Then we rubbed our hands and 
faces, ^^^hy ! how queerly they looked and felt. 

" Ha ! ha ! look at the Professor's face. Why ! 
there ain't a wri7ikle left I " said the photographer. 

And so it proved. The aneroid told us that we 
were over three miles from the ground, and the at- 
mosphere was so diminished in pressure that the 
internal forces of the body pressed outward and made 
the skin full and smooth. 

One of yesterday's party had provided some large 
envelopes with long red tails of tissue paper to drop 
into towns, and we wrote messages and enclosed them 
in some of these, putting sand in one end, and 
launched them. We watched them as they shot 
hither and yon in their swift flight toward the earth. 
The chance finder was requested to send the contents 



:/' 4J^^^^^-' 




OUR BALLOON CAMP. 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM, 



!03 



to the nearest telegraph office, but we never heard 
from any of them, save one. 

About noon we found by comparing our maps with 
the streams below that we had passed into Pennsylva- 
nia ; and not long afterwards we descried Oil City set 
upon the creek, with all its hills covered with derricks 
and oil tanks. 

Speaking of Oil City, reminds me of a rather funny 
incident : For a couple of years I had been in corre- 
spondence with a young man who resided there, and 
w^ho was also a journalist. His name and mine were 
just the same. I had promised faithfully to stop and 
see him at any time chance might bring me near his 
home. I took one of the envelopes and wrote a re- 
gret, dropping it over the city. It w^as picked up in 
the road and handed to him, but he aJways insisted 
that I had broken my promise unreasonably. 

At the rate in w^hich Oil City was left behind we 
knew our pace was very rapid, though to us it all 
seemed like a dead calm, for we kept just even with 
the wind. 

The Professor said we could reach New England by 
midnight if the wind held and it didn't grow cloudy ; 
but alas ! for the past hour we had been watching a 
little fleecy nebulous bit of mist that seemed, like a 



204 RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 

spirit, to spring from the nothingness of the blue ether, 
growing constantly, and attracting other cloudlets 
which came toward it from all quarters of the heavens 
and were swallowed up. A growing, whirling wall of 
pearly gray mounted and spread its shadow over half 
the earth. 

We threw out sand and mounted above it. Then it 
arose toward us again. It seemed as though we could 
reach our hands into its surging depths. Over went 
seats, baskets, the tent — everything we could spare, 
and I'm not sure the Professor didn't glare at one 
of his companions with malicious and deadly in- 
tent. 

The truth rushed upon us that we were racing with 
a storm. 

It was of vital importance to keep in the sun, for 
the moment the shadows below could place their 
chilly spell upon our steed, the gas would chill and 
condense, and we would drop ! drop ! swiftly to the 
earth. At last it came, and we knew it was in- 
evitable. Below us we could hear the crashing of 
thunder reverberating away into the depths of the 
black storm masses, and the lightnings every moment 
lit the weird scene with a grandeur but few mortals 
have ever witnessed. For a brief moment we hung 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 205 

suspended like Mahomet's coffin in the centre of a 
great cave of pearl. Shall I ever forget that glimpse 
of heavenly splendor ? A single shaft of sunlight 
broke through its walls and then died like the last ray 
of hojoe. Then downward we rushed ! A mile nearer 
earth within the first minute ! As the air grew denser 
we fell more gradually. Our long drag-rope was out, 
weighing perhaps three hundred pounds. Now we 
were closely enshrouded by leaden clouds. The 
rain ran down the bag in rivulets and trickled upon 
our heads. 

" Look, oh look ! " cried the Professor. 

We were now below the storm, and along its dense 
ceiling could see its broad extent. We were above 
the mountains. No towns nor even houses could be 
discovered, only dense forests, through which the gale 
howled as among the rigging of a ship upon a winter 
sea. 

Very quickly our drag-rope touched the tree-tops 
and began to glide among the swaying pines. 

" Hold on at life-ropes ! " shouted the Professor, 
knife in hand. 

In another instant the basket gave a dreadful surge ; 
a mass of pine boughs swept about our heads, fol- 
lowed by a strong jerk. The Professor had cut the 



2 06 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 



cord which bound the anchor coil. The anchor had 

dropped and caught among the limbs. We were 

safe ! No ! not yet. 

The line must be shortened so we could clear the 

tree-tops. All three 
tugged at the rope. 
Then other lashings 
were made while the 
great aerostat plunged 
about like a wounded 
leviathan . W e were 
eighty feet from the 
ground. Two of us 
found it convenient to 
go down the drag-rope, 
but the poor Professor, 
tall and heavy, preferred 
to try the tree. This 
was wet and slipper}^-, as 
well as full of project- 
ing points of broken 
branches. About twenty 
feet from the ground 

the Professor's clothes caught. He was in a great 

dilemma. 




THE PROFESSORS DILEMMA. 




THE WRECK OF -THE "BUFFALO." 



RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 209 

Amid a good deal of laughter we managed to lib- 
erate him, and as he reached the ground he exclaimed : 
" Well, of all the scrapes I was ever in, this is about 
the meanest ! " 

But help came even here. Far down the slope we 
heard a shout, w^hich you may be sure w^as quickly 
answered. Then, after a while, the bushes parted and 
a half-score of woodsmen carrying gleaming axes ran 
to our aid. They were all thoroughly wet, like our- 
selves. 

" What can we do for you ? '" they asked. 

" Cut down half a dozen of these pines. I want to 
save the balloon," answered the aeronaut. 

Then you should have seen the chips fly ! Down 
came the trees, one after the other, and finally the one 
to which our steed was lashed. The gas soon es- 
caped through great holes torn by the limbs, and our 
gallant craft was robbed of its power. Standing upon 
one of the fallen trees I made the sketch you see be- 
fore you. 

We found upon inquiring that we had landed in 
Potter county, Pennsylvania ; and consulting our 
watches, found we had travelled one hundred and 
twenty-five miles in about two hours. 

We were made comfortable at a lumberman's cabin. 



2IO RACING A THUNDER-STORM. 

and managed to get out of the woods in a couple of 
days where we could telegraph to our friends. 

It cannot be denied that after the excitement had 
passed we felt very much like an old farmer who 
listened to our adventures. He said : 

" Mebbe some folks prefer to travel in a flying 
Beelzebub, but I'm willin' to git along in a buck-board 
with a good road to put my feet agin when I git 
off." 

You'll say, now, " I guess that race was enough for 
you ! " But you're wrong ; for I've had several trips 
since ; and now you've a perfect right to retort, " Well ! 
you are a bigger balloonatic than I took you for." 

Perhaps you're right. 



AUGUST'S "'SPERIMENT." 

AUGUST was rather a troublesome boy. Gen- 
erous and jolly, — his playmates called him a 
firstrate good fellow, but older people complained 
that he was curious, meddlesome, and always " clut- 
tering round." 

But here is mamma's opinion : 

" August was born to be busy. He is inventive too. 
He asks questions to gain information, and he handles 
things to see how they are made." 

"What is he tinkering at' now, mamma?" asked 
Tom. " He has got hold of an old, old book, full of 
f ss, and all yellow ; he's rigged two pans in a barrel, 
and bought a naptha lamp, and locked us all out of 
the attic." 

" And he just came in with a covered basket, 
mamma," said Katie, 'carrying it ever so carefully. 



2 12 August's '"speriment." 

I was jumping rope in the hall, and he asked me not 
to joggle. What do you suppose he was doing, 
mamma ? " 

" Suppose we wait till he tells us," said mamma, 
smiling. 

" He's only trying some of his 'speriments," said 
wise little Robbie, aged five. 

After the children went out, mamma took up her 
work and sat down by the window, watching the three 
ouloide, and waiting for her oldest boy, August, who 
presently came to take her into his confidence. 

" Mamma, I am trying an experiment." 

" And is that something new, August ? " with an 
encouraging smile. 

"But the kind'is new, mamma. Did you ever hear 
of Reaumur ? " 

" Who wrote that curious old book on the art of 
hatching fowls by artificial incubation? Yes, Au- 
gust." 

*• Then will you come and see, mamma, what / 
have begun to do ? " 

He led the way, two steps at a time, to the attic, 
When they reached the door, August drew from his 
pocket a key, and unlocked it and led his mother in. 

A flour-barrel stood in the centre of the floor, 



AUGUST S 



SPERTMENT. 



213 




closely covered, August removed the cover, and 

lifted up a piece of carpet. His mother looked in. 

Within the barrel was 
suspended a large, deep 
pan, resting on three iron 
cleats. This j^an was partly 
filled with hot water, and 
floating on the water was 
another pan — a shallow 
one — which contained a 
layer of sand an inch deep. 
Over this was spread a 
piece of linen cloth, and in 
the cloth thirty-six large 

Brahma eggs lay closely packed. In the center 

stood a neat thermometer. 

" You have made your arrangements very neatly, 

August," said mamma. "Of course 1 do not under- 
stand them exactly." 

"Well, you see, mamma, this shallow pan gets its 

heat from the water beneath it. I put that in hot, and 

keep it just right with this lamp." 

Saying which, he knelt in front of the barrel, and 

opened a neat little door, fitted with a brass knob and 

hinges. 

Stooping down and looking in, his mother saw on 



The Incubator. 



214 AUGUSTS '' 'SPERIMENT. ' 

a tall flower-pot, which stood upside down, a naptha 
safety-lamp sending forth a small, steady flame. 

" That keeps the temperature about equable j''said 
August, ** but I have another lamp, larger than this, 
to use in case my incubator grows too cool." 

" When did you set them ? " asked mamma. 

" This morning." 

" To-day is the first of March : then if no accident 
happens, and the eggs are good, you expect them to 
hatch on the twenty-first.? " 

" Yes, mamma, and the eggs are all right because 
I told Grandma I wanted some very fresh, and she 
saved them for me." 

" Did Grandma know of your experiment ? " 

" Oh ! no, mamma. Not a soul but you knows 
about it \ and I want you to keep the secret until we 
know how it will turn out." 

"Very well ! " said mamma; "but if you lock the 
door you had better leave the key with me in case 
anything should happen. I will look at your incuba- 
tor occasionally while you are at school." 

August gave his mother a grateful look — he felt so 
encouraged by her sympathy. 

" How warm do you keep the eggs ? " she asked as 
he carefully replaced the carpet and cover. 



AUGUSTS " SPERIiMENT. 215 

*' Reaumur says at 32°, that is about 103 1-2 *Fah- 
renheit ' 

" Must the eggs be kept at that temperature all the 
time?" 

" No, only through the first week. The second it 
is a little less and the third still less." 

" There is the luncheon-bell, dear ; we must go down 
or the children will be trooping up here. I hope, my 
boy, that you will succeed." 

" If I don't I shall try again," said August. Then, 
taking a final look to see that the thermometer and 
lamp were all right, he locked the room and they 
went down. 

He paid several visits to the attic during the day 
and evening, finding on each occasion that all worked 
well and steadily. Before going to bed he refilled the 
lamp, so the supply of naptha shouldn't be exhausted ; 
then he went to sleep and dreamed all night of eggs 
and chickens. 

In the morning he was up and at his incubator be- 
fore any one else was stirring. The thermometer 
indicated that the eggs were a trifle cool, so he turned 
up the wick of the lamp. Before going to church he 
turned the eggs. This he did twice daily, being care- 

*Fahrenheit and Reaumur were both inventors of thermometers. Those 
commonly in use are Fahrenheit's. 



2i6 August's '"speriment. 

ful not to jar them. The incubator worked well all 
day and all night. 

The next day was Monday and he had his school 
duties to attend to. He left everything in good order, 
took the attic key to his mother, and went off to school 
full of confidence. 

Alas ! When mamma went up at ten o'clock, she 
could scarcely see across the room. Everything was 
black with soot. The naptha lamp was smoking 
fiercely. 

The first thing was to get the window open, and 
put out the lamp. Then mamma looked at the eggs. 
Alas, again ! There they lay covered with fine black 
soot. She took up one and tried to wipe it, but suc- 
ceeded only in making a smirch which she could 
not wipe off. She knew then that the eggs were 
spoiled. 

In the midst of it all August came in from school 
having been dismissed early. Poor August ! He 
could scarcely keep the tears back. 

"Well, August," said his mamma very practically, 
" I don't think a naptha lamp just the thing. They 
are very apt to smoke, and they are very inflammable." 

'•Yes," said August, trying to be cheerful. " Failure 
the first ! I shall try it again. Grandma will give 
me some more eggs. I've only lost three days." 



AUGUSTS " SPERIMENT. ' 21 7 

" And / will go to town this afternoon," said his 
mother, " and see if I cannot find a lamp which will 
be more reliable." 

There was no school that afternoon, so August 
cleaned the room, and supplied the incubator with 
fresh eggs, greatly encouraged by his mother's sympa- 
thy and interest. 

The other children were curious enough to know 
what was going on in the attic ; but they could get no 
information. 

Toward evening Mrs. Grant returned from town, 
bringing for her little boy a large tin lamp which 
would burn kerosene. He lighted it and adjusted the 
wick to just the right height. Then it was placed 
within the barrel to warm the second setting of eggs. 

Day after day August and his mother watched and 
tended them. Everything progressed finely. 

On the next Monday the eggs, having been in the 
incubator a week, were far enough advanced to be 
tested. At a south window there hung a heavy green 
Holland curtain. In this mamma allowed August to 
cut a hole, a little smaller than an egg, and she her- 
self staid to assist him. 

When all was ready, she handed August the eggs 
one by one. One by one he held them to the aper- 
ture. The first seemed quite transparent. In vain 



2i8 August's " 'speriment." 

August turned and turned it — there was^ nothing to 
be seen but the yolk floating at the top. With a sigh 
he laid that aside and took up another. 

*' O, mamma, look ! " he cried excitedly. 

Mrs. Grant examined it with great interest. Not 
only could she distinctly see the dark form of a little 
chick, particularly the head with its immense eye, but 
bright blood-veins were also plainly defined, branch- 
ing out in all directions from the body. Another and 
still another of the eggs looked like this one. Au- 
gust was greatly excited. 

"They are lively enough ! " he said. " See, mamma, 
this one moves, and this ! " 

Then came one that was dark and shaky. " Addled," 
pronounced August. After this a number more ap- 
peared as promising as the former ones. 

Finally all were tested. They were pleased enough 
with the result. Three were clear — that meant there 
were no chickens within the shells ; one was addled ; 
and thirty-two contained live chicks. 

August was so wild over this discovery that his 
hands grew unsteady, and he unfortunately dropped 
two of the eggs and broke them. This left him but 
thirty likely to hatch; but these were all very promis- 
ing. 



August's '"speriment." 219 

'* I am sure we will succeed now, mamma," cried 
August gaily. 

" It looks like it, certainly," said mamma. 

But alas for poor August's bright hopes ! and alas 
for the expected chickens ! Whether August was too 
confident and grew careless, or whether it was one of 
those unforeseen accidents that will happen, will never 
be known ; but this is certain, that the next morning 
when August went, later than usual, to look at his in- 
cubator, he found the thermometer had gone up to 
no and must have been at that temperature some 
time, for in egg after ^g^^ which he opened in despair, 
was a poor little dead chick. 

Even if a boy is fourteen years old, he cannot help 
crying sometimes over a great disappointment. 

Poor August put out his lamp with sorrowful breath 
and some of his tears fell upon the hot chimney 
which hissed as if in mocljery. 

Then he locked himself in his own room, threw him- 
self on the bed, refused his breakfast and gave way 
to his grief. 

Tom, Katie and Robbie all tried to get at him, but 
without avail. Katie coaxed with loving words. 
Robbie murmured, "Poor Gussie ! " Tom said 
" Never mind, old fellow, if your 'speriment has failed. 
Come and play ball." 



220 August's '"speriment." 

August's reply was not very polite. 

" My experiment hasn't failed, and that is all you 
know about it, Tom ! " 

But the word " fail " seemed to rouse him, to restore 
his courage ; for presently unlocking the door and 
coming out, he said quietly to himself, " I shall just 
go down to Grandma's for some more eggs — that's 
what I shall do!" 

Grandma was curious to know what he did with so 
many eggs ; but she asked no questions. She had 
great respect for August and his 'speriments. 

She only said, " This makes one hundred and eight 
eggs, child. Now, if I had set all these, and if they 
had all hatched, what a lot of little chickens I would 
have had ! " 

" Ah ! " thought August. " If ! — " And he drew 
a long sigh. 

Mamma, meanwhile, had been up to the attic to 
look at the incubator, knowing nothing of what had 
happened. Great was her amazement to find the lamp 
out, a basin full of broken eggs and little dead chicks, 
and the incubator itself deserted and empty. 

" Why, August ! " she cried, as she met him in the 
door with a basket of fresh eggs. " What has happened, 
dear child ? " 

" Only failure number two j " he answered, trying to 



August's '"speriment." 2^1 

speak cheerfully, though even yet the tears lay high. 
"They got too hot in the night, mamma." 

" Yet you are not quite discouraged ? '' said mamma. 

August held out his basket with a smile. 

So once more the incubator was set. 

"We must take more pains this time," said mamma. 

" Yes'm," answered August, " I'll try not to let any 
thing happen to these." 

Things did work more smoothly this time. The 
temperature was kept about right, the eggs were tested 
successfully and without accident. 

One week, two weeks, two weeks and a half, and 
then things happened again, things which came neai 
being serious enough. It was Saturday afternoon. 
August was going with the other children to a circus. 
He had turned the eggs carefully and sprinkled them 
lightly with warm water. He had admitted the chil- 
dren into his secret, and they were all in the room 
waiting for him. , 

" These eggs are a little cool," said August, putting 
one up to his cheek. " I must leave them just right, 
I think I will fill the lamp and turn it up a little. 
Tommy, will you take the lamp out ? " 

Down on his knees Tommy went, and drew out the 
lamp which he set on the floor. Then, kneeling stili 
above it, he blew hard, directly down the chimney. 



222 AUGUSTUS " 'SPERIMENT.' 



" Puff ! BANG ! Crack! " went something, caus- 
ing August, Katie and Robbie to start violently, while 
poor Tommy, with his hands to his eyes, rolled over 
on the floor with a groan. 

'' Mamma, oh! mamma ! " screamed Katie, " the 
lamp is 'sploded ! " 

" And Tommy's killed ! " shrieked Robbie. 

Mamma flew up the stairs and to Tommy. 

" Oh ! his eyes ! " she cried. " Quick, August, 
water I '' 

" Oh ! my poor Tommy ! " sobbed little Robbie. 
" See him all b'eedin', b'eedin' ! " 

August came running with the water, and knelt 
down and held the basin while Katie flew for a sponge 
and soft linen. 

When the blood was washed off, and his smarting 
eyes had been bathed with fresh, cool water, Tommy 
discovered that he had been more frightened than 
hurt ; and mamma and the rest were greatly relieved 
to find his worst wound, a slight cut between the eyes, 
could be cured by court-plaster. 

It was a great wonder, however, that more harm 
had not been done ; for when the child blew so forci- 
bly down the chimney, the wick shot up out of the 
lamp and the chimney shivered in pieces ; one of the 
pieces had struck his face, making the cut, while the 



AUGUST S " SPERIMENT. 223 

hot air and smoke flashing into his eyes caused them 
to smart fiercely. August had neglected to fill the 
lamp at the proper time, and the oil had burned nearly 
out. It was the sudden forcing of air down the tube 
which caused the explosion. 

"1 thought you said 'twas a safety lamp ! " said 
Katie indignantly. 

" 'Tisn't half so good as our un-safety ones ; " de- 
clared Robbie. 

" It's never safe to blow directly down upon a full 
flame in any lamp," said mamma. " The wick should 
always be turned down first and the flame gently 
blown." 

"Accident the third ; " said August ruefully. " Mam- 
ma, do you feel like trusting me any farther ? " 

His mother smiled. *' The usual experience of in- 
ventors, my son." 

Sunday passed quietly Monday with its school 
duties was well over. Tuesday morning — " Thre? 
weeks to-day ! " said August, and half fearfully opened 
his incubator. 

" Peep ! Peep ! Peep I " 

The lad trembled with excitement, and a flush of 
joy spread over his face. He could hardly believe 
his ears. " One, two, three," he hurriedly counted, 
" four, five, six." On he counted, up to twenty eggs 



224 August's " 'speriment." 

chipped or cracked. One chicken was half out of its 
shell, and one, quite independent, was scrambling over 
the rest of the eggs. 

August held his breath and looked at them as long 
as he dared to keep the incubator open. Then softly 
closing the lid, he rushed down stairs. 

" Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " he shouted at the door of his 
mother's room. " They're hatching, mamma ! They're 
hatching ! " 

" Are they, really ? " asked mamma, pleased 
enough, and she hurried up the stairs, closely fol- 
lowed by the children, whom August's joyful cry had 
aroused from their sleep. In great excitement they 
clustered around the barrel. 

" Oh ! what a cunning, fluffy one ! " cried little Ka- 
tie, as she spied the oldest chick. 

"But what is the matter with that other one?" 
asked Tommy. 

" He has just left the shell and is not dry yet," Au- 
gust explained. " As soon as he is dry he will be downy 
like the other." 

" Hear em say ^ peep ! peep i ' " cried little Robbie, 
grasping the edge of the barrel with both hands, and 
stretching his short legs to their utmost extent in or- 
der to get his eyes high enough to look over the edge. 



August's " 'speriment." 



225 



*'What lots are cracked!" said Tommy. "Oh! 
August, here is one cracked all round." 

"Yes," said August, "that chick will soon be out." 
Even as he spoke the shell parted, and a third little 
bright-e\^ed chicken struggled out and looked about 
in amazement. 

The children could have watched them much longer 
with great interest, but mamma was afraid the incuba- 
tor would get too cool, and she advised August to 
cover it. 

" How do they do it, mamma ? " asked Katie. 
" The little chick is packed very wonderfully in his 
shell," said mamma. " His head under his wing, legs 
folded up with the feet toward the head, his bill com- 
ing out from under one wing. This bill is furnished 
with a little hard point on the top. When he is ready 
to crack the shell and come out, he begins to move. 
He turns his whole body slowly round, cracking the 
shell as he goes, by press- 
ing with his whole force 
against it, the hard, sharp 
point on the top of his bill 
coming next the shell. 
When he is a few days old ^ow ™hel 
this hard point drops off. 
Just before he hatches, after the egg is cracked all 





How THE CHICK 
EX IS PACKED. 



226 August's '* "speriment." 

around, he frees his head from his wing and struggles 

to stretch himself. Then the shell parts and he gets 
his head out, and presently his legs, one after the 
other. I forgot to say that just before hatching he 
gradually absorbs the yolk of the egg into his body, 
and that nourishes him for twenty-four hours after 
hatching." 

"It's very curious, isn't it? " said Tommy. 

" I didn't know anytlnng but hens or ducks could 
hatch eggs," said Katie. 

" Why, Katie ! " exclaimed August, " there is a 
place at Canton, in China, where thousands of ducks' 
eggs are hatched artificially every day. There are 
twenty-eight rooms to the establishment, and all along 
the sides of these rooms are rows of sliding trays 
filled with eggs. These eggs are put in the first room 
the first day j on the second day they are moved to 
the second room ; and so on, until they hatch in the 
last room. The heat is graduated, the last rooms be- 
ing cooler than the first. All these eggs are hatched 
by the heat of the rooms." 

" If they hatch thousands every day," asked Tom- 
my, " what do they do with the little ducks .? " 

"They hatch them for the people in the neighbor- 
ing towns," replied August. " The Chinese are very 
fond of ducks and ducks' eggs. A gentleman who 



AUGUSTS '" SPERIMENT. 227 

has been to Canton, and seen the hatching-rooms, 
told me he had seen people take eggs there to be 
hatched. They wouild pay for the hatching and then 
one of the men in charge of the rooms would count 
their eggs, and give them just as many little duck- 
lings." 

" I guess they don't have accidents there, then," 
said Katie. 

"/won't have accidents always,^' August replied. 

" But what do they do with so many ducks ? " asked 
Tommy. 

"Why, half the poor Chinese people near the coast 
live on the water all the time in boats that are half 
houses. Of course they could not keep hens, but they 
can keep ducks and they do." 

" Oh, yes ! " cried Tommy. " I 'me*nber how papa 
told about seeing them fed and called into the boats. 
He said every flock knew its own call, and would go 
scuttling through the water to the right boat. He 
thought they were in this d'edful hurry, cause the last 
one got whipped." 

" What shall I do about school, mamma } " August 
asked. 

"Oh ! go, and recite your most important lessons," 
she answered wisely. " I will take care of the eggs 
and chickens till you return." 



2 28 August's " 'speriment." 

It was just as well for August to be occupied, 
since tiie hatching, although it went on surely, was slow 
work. 

With great faith in his incubator, August had pre- 
viously built a little yard for the expected chickens. 

It was in box form, about eight feel long and two 
feet wide. In the center was a feeding-tray and water 
tank, and at one end a hover. This hover (H) was 




The artificial mother. 

lined with soft fur loosely tacked to the top and sides 
and hanging down the front in narrow strips to form 
a curtain. It sloped from the front to the back. The 
water tank was a stout earthen bottle in a saucer ; a 
small hole near the bottom of the bottle let the water, 
drop by drop, into the saucer, so that as the chickens 
drank, the supply in the saucer was continually fresh- 
ening. The bottom of the yard was covered with 
gravel three inches deep. This neat yard was now 
waiting down stairs in a sunny shed room to receive 
the chickens. 

August went to school, and on his way home called 
for his grandmother to go up to the house to dinner. 



August's " 'speriment.'' 229 

Grandma knew that it was just three weeks sijice 
August had taken the last eggs, and that twenty-one 
days was the time allotted by nature for the brincrin^ 
forth of chickens, so she shrewdly suspected what she 
would find ; but it had not occurred to her that she 
would find chickens alive without the aid of a hen. 

" Grandma," asked August, as they walked along 
" when you set a hen on thirteen eggs, how many do 
you expect will hatch ? " 

" I hope for all," she replied, but I seldom get all. 
I think ten out of thirteen is a very good proportion." 

" My incubator beats your hens ! " thought August. 

When they reached the house he took her straight 
to the attic. 

" Well, I never ! " she exclaimed. " So that is your 
secret, August! Well, I declare! And it really 
hatches the eggs, doesn't it ? I always knew, child, 
that you would invent something wonderful." 

"I didn't i?ivejit much," he said modestly. "In 
1750, Reaumur, the French naturalist, gave an account 
of his experiments in hatching eggs in barrels set in 
hot-beds of horse-manure ; and the Chinese and the 
Egyptians have hatched them for ages in ovens." 

" But this is by hot water and lamps," said Grandma. 
" Yes," said August, " I never saw an incubator be- 



230 August's " 'speriment.'' 

fore I made this ; but, Grandma, I had read of Ihem 
made on the same principle." 

" At any rate," said Grandma, " I think that you 
deserve great credit for patience and ingenuity." 

By evening thirty chickens were hatched from the 
thirty-six eggs. The other six gave no signs of life. 
By Grandma's advice they were left in the incubator 
"to give them a chance," but they never hatched. 

The next morning all the members of the family 
took the chickens down-stairs, even Robbie, who took 
two in a basket, and deposited them in their new home. 

Then their food was prepared, the yolks of hard- 
boiled eggs crumbled up fine, bread crumbs, milk, 
and a little fine cracked corn. After a few days they 
could be fed almost entirely upon the cracked corn. 

The whole family then stood around the yard ad- 
miring the brood, thirty little, bright-eyed, yellow, 
fluffy balls. They soon learned to eat and to drink, 
and were busy, happy little creatures. They woulci 
run under the hover when they wanted warmth or 
quiet, just as naturally as they would have run under 
a mother hen. The box was built on castors, and 
could be rolled from window to window, and thus 
kept in the sunlight, in which the little creatures rev- 
eled ; and at night it could be pushed near the stove. 
Of course August had to renew the gravel very oft- 



August's " 'speriment." 231 

en, and he was very particular to keep the food dishes 
sweet and clean. When the weather grew warm 
enough the yard was rolled into an open shed, and 
they could run out of doors. 

These chickens were considered very wonderful, 
and many visitors came to see them. They grew 
fast and were as tame as kittens. Day after day 
the children came to feed the pretty pets, bringing 
them young clover tops and tender grass. Katie 
treated them with her birds'" canary and hemp seed. 
Robbie gave them bits of his cookies and cakes. 
Anything that the children liked to eat, these little 
chickens liked also ; and when they heard the little 
boots coming towards them they would perch on the 
edge of their yard and chirp and peep and coax for 
their dainties. 

By and by their wings began to grow and the fluffy 
down was changed to feathers. Grandma said that 
now they must have mea! occasionally, chopped up 
fine, and they had it Wednesdays and Saturdays. 

The little creatures were frantic for the meat. They 
would fly upon August, and, if they could get there, 
into the dish, which they more than once overturned. 

When their plumage was well out they were hand- 
some fowls. August built a large coop and out-door 
yard for them, but they were not often confined in it, 



232 August's " 'speriment.'' 

for the children loved to have them about with them, 
and watched them as carefully as a hen mother could 
have done ; and great was the joy of Katie and Rob- 
bie as they ran to their mother to report the first 
crowing of the little cockerels. 

When last I saw them they were well grown. The 
pullets, August proudly informed me, were laying. 

It was the glorious Fourth. Torpedoes were the 
order of the day, and Katie and Robbie were amusing 
themselves by throwing the snappers in all directions, 
and seeing their feathered pets run to eat what they 
could never find. The other fowls, disturbed by the 
noise of the day, preferred to keep hidden away in 
their houses, but these liked to keep about with the 
children and see the fun. 

Angust began his experiments when some of my 
young readers were quite little children. He has 
continued them through several seasons, until now, 
after much study and patient industry, he has enlarged 
and greatly improved his incubator. He has changed 
its form entirely, and has attached an electric appara- 
tus which regulates the heat, and avoids all danger 
from smoke. He has applied for a patent, and has 
made arrangements for taking care of a large number 
of chickens as early as February, being still greatly 
interested in this successful " "speriment." 



SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT- 
HOUSES. 

YOU have all heard of the Seven Wonders of 
the World; did you know that two of these 
wonders were veritable Light-houses ? 

About 300 B. C, Cheres, the disciple of Lysippus, 
cast the famous brazen Colossus of Rhodes, a statue 
of the Sun God Apollo, and erected it at the entrance 
of the harbor where it was used as a Light-house, the 
flames which crowned the head of the Sun God by 
night serving to guide wandering barks into his Rho 
dian waters. 

For eighty years its hundred brazen feet towered 
superbly above port and town, and then it was partly 
destroyed by an earthquake. For nearly a thousand 
years the sacred image remained unmolested where it 
had fallen, by Greek and Roman, Pagan and Chris- 
tian; but at lar)t the Saracen owners of Rhodes, caring 



234 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

as little for its religious association as for its classic 
antiquity, sold the brass of it for the great sum of 
;£'36.ooo, to the Jewish merchants of Edessa. 

Just about the time that the Colossus was set 
astride the Rhodian harbor, King Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus caused a noble tower of superb white stone, four 
hundred feet high, to be erected by an architect 
named Sostrasius, son of Dixiphanes, at the entrance 
to the port of Alexandria, which was a bran-new busy 
city in those days, a mere mushroom growth in that 
old, old Egypt, where the upstart Ptolomies were 
reigning on the throne of the Pharaohs. 

It is said that this Sostrasius didn't want his own 
name to be forgotten, so he carved it deep in the 
stone of the tower and covered it over with plaster 
whereon he inscribed by royal command : 

" King Ptolemy to the Gods, the Saviours, for the 
benefit of sailors." 

Josephus tells us that the light, kept burning on the 
top of this Pharos, as it was called, probably from a 
word that signifies^r^, was visible for forty miles at 
sea. For a thousand years it shone constantly until 
the Alexandrian Wonder likewise fell a prey to time 
and the Saracens. 

The words Pharos-Ph^re, Faro, etc., have been 
adopted into more than one European language lo 
express Light-house or sea-light. 



SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 237 

Some persons suppose that great mirrors must have 
been used to direct the Ught on the Pharos and keep 
it from being lost, but it is most probable that no 
more effective means of illumination than a common 
tire was employed. 

The only other Light-houses of antiquity of which 
any record has been preserved are the Tower of 
Conira in Spain, which Humboldt mentions as the 
Iron Tower^ and a magnificent stone Light-house at 
Capio, near the mouth of the Guadalquiver, that 
Strabo tells us about, on a rock nearly surrounded 
by sea. 

Then tradition points out Cesar's Altar at Dover, the 
Tour (f Ordre ^X Boulogne, a Roman Pharos at Nor- 
folk, and, in early British history, St. Edmund's Chapel 
at the same place, as having been originally intended 
for sea-lights. 

Though we are far ahead of our forefathers in our 
scientific apparatus for illuminating Light-houses, we 
have never equalled them in magnificence of archi- 
tecture ; for, in point of grandeur, the Tour de Corduan 
at the mouth of the River Garonne, in France, is 
probably the noblest edifice of the kind in the world, 
and it is nearly three hundred years since it was com- 
pleted under Henry IV., having been twenty-six years 
in building. 



238 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

All these centuries it has stood strong on its ^reat 
reef, and has served to guide the shipping of Bor- 
deau and the Languedoc Canal, and all that part of 
the Bay of Biscay; and it promises, in all human prob- 
ability, to show its steadfast light for centuries to 
come. 

Corduan is stoutly built in four stories, each of 
a different order of architecture, highly ornamented 
and adorned with the busts of the Kings of France, 
and of the heathen divinities. The first story con- 
tains the store-rooms, the second, the so-called King's 
apartments, the third a chapel, and the fourth the 
dome or lower lantern. The tower completed is 197 feet 
high. 

When this splendid structure was completed no 
better method for illuminating was known than by 
burning billets of oak wood in a chauffer in the upper 
lantern ; and it was considered a great matter when a 
rude reflector in the form of an inverted cone was 
suspended above the flame to prevent the light from 
escaping upward. It is not known, in fact, that any 
more effective mode of lighting was employed until 
1760, not much more than one hundred years ago ; and 
then the radiance was not especially brilliant as i^ 
would seem to us. At that time Smeaton the engineei 
began to use wax candles at the Eddystone Light 




A Modern Light-house. 



SO.MEIHIXG ABOUT LKIH r-H.)L-SE.S. 241 

house, which soon degenerated to tallow dips, prob- 
ably on account of the expewse, and they must have 
given the keeper abundance of occupation in the way 
of snuffing and replenishing. 

In 1789 a French scientist, M. Lenoir, made an 
epoch in the history of Light-houses, and in the prog- 
ress of civilization as well, when he introduced an 
improvement in the way of lighting up the Tour de 
Corduan; for, of course, the comparative safety in 
coast navigation attained to by means of our modern 
Light-house system is of the first consequence in com- 
merce and international communication, which means 
the spread of science, enlightenment and religion 
throughout the world. M. Lenoir placed Argand 
lamps with parabolic mirrors or reflectors in the lan- 
tern, which is, as it appears, a glass room on the sum- 
mit of the tower entered by a trap-door at the head of 
a spiral staircase. Such a great change having been 
brought about, men of science have not rested con- 
tent, but have gone on making one advance after 
another. In 1820 the famous diaptric instruments of 
Mr. Fresnel were placed in Corduan on trial, and 
proved such a grand success that, gradually, they have 
been universally adopted. The wonderful lens which 
you saw at the Centennial belongs to a diaptric re- 
fracting light of the first order, and oil lamps con 



242 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

structed on the Fresnel principle, and, placed with 
lenses of different orders, according to the Light-house 
ihey are used for, serve an admirable purpose. Lard 
is found to be the best illuminator, as a general 
thing, for the light it casts through lenses of the first 
order reaches as far out to sea as it is possible for 
any lii^ht to be seen on account of the convexity of 
the earth. Experiment has proved it safer than min- 
eral oil, and it is cheaper than gas, which however is 
occasionally used near a city whence it can easily be 
obtained. Only in some few special instances 
electric light, the most intense procurable, is employed. 

The Centennial birth-day gift of the citizens of 
France to the American Republic is a colossal brazen 
statue of Liberty, which is to be a Pharos to light the 
shipping of the world into New York harbor. It will 
stand on Bedloe's Island, and from the torch in its 
uplifted hand will flash a calcium light. Only the 
hand and arm were finished in time to be sent to the 
Exposition ; but these were on so gigantic a scale that 
a man standing in the little gallery which ringed the 
thumb holding the torch seemed like an ant or a fly 
creeping along at that height. 

Sir Walter Scott — dear Sir Walter, whose " Tales 
of a Grandfather " and Scottish stories and poems 
were so delightfully familiar to the boys and girls of 



lliil^ , ml 




SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 245 

the last generation, left a charming little diary of a 
voyage he made in the summer of 1814, on board a 
Light-house yacht, in company with the Commissioners 
of Northern Lights, — who have charge of the Light- 
houses in Scotland, as the Elder Brethren of Trinity 
House have of those in England, — their Surveyor- 
Viceroy, the engineer Stevenson^ and a few other 
gentlemen. 

The first Light-house they visited was an old tower, 
like a " border keep," still illuminated by a grate fire 
on top. The commissioners think of substituting an 
oil revolving-light ; but Sir Walter wonders if th^ graf^ 
couldn't be made to revolve ! 

Next they came to Bell Rock, which, in olden 
times, was the terror of sailors feeling their way in 
and out of the islands and rocks and shoals of the 
beautiful, perilous coast of Scotland. Inch-cape 
Rock, as it was then called, had shipwrecked many a 
helpless crew before the Abb®t of Aberbrathock, fif- 
teen miles off, out of pity caused a float to be fixed 
on the rock, with a bell attached which, swinging by 
the motion of the waves, warned seamen of the 
danger. 

Many years later, when Abbot and Monastery 
bells had all become things of the past, a huniane 
naval officer set up two beacons on Bell Rock by sub- 



246 SO.METHIXG ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

scription ; but ihey were soon destroyed by the fury 
of the elements. 

At last in 1802, people began to realize the danger 
of this terrible reef in the highway of navigation, and 
the Commissioners appointed Mr. Robert Stevenson 
to erect a Light-house on this point. 

It w^as a perilous undertaking, and once the engi- 
neer and his workmen made a very narrow escape 
from drowning ; but it was successfully accomplished 
by the brave and skilful btevenson. Sir Walter thus 
describes this famous beacon. 

" Its dimensions are well known ; but no descrip- 
tion can give the idea of this slight, solitary, round 
tower, trembling amid the billows, and fifteen miles 
from Arbraeth (Aberbrathock), the nearest shore. 
The fitting up within is not only handsome, but ele- 
gant. All work of wood (almost) is wainscot ; all 
hammer-work brass ; in short, exquisitely fitted up. 
You enter by a ladder of rope, with wooden steps, 
about thirty feet from the bottom where the mason- 
work ceases to be solid, and admits of round apart- 
ments. The lowest is a storehouse for the people's 
provisions, water, etc. j above that, a storehouse for the 
lights, oil, etc. ; then the kitchen of the people, three 
in number j then their sleeping chamber ; then the 
snloon or parlor, a neat little room ; above all the 



SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 247 

Light-house ; all communicating by oaken ladders 
with brass rails, most handsomely and conveniently 
executed." 

In the course of the voyage Mr. Stevenson deter- 
mined that his "constituents " should visit a reef of 
rocks called Skeny Vlior (Skerrymore), where he 
thought it would be essential to have a Light-house. 
Sir Walter's description of this visit is quite amusing 
and perhaps you would like to read it. The wind had 
blown squally all night, and in consequence everything 
and everybody were pitched and tossed about at a 
great rate, on board the little vessel. Nobody relished 
the attempt to land under these circumstances on this 
wild ridge. 

" Quiet perseverence on the part of Mr. Stevenson, 
and great kicking, bouncing, and squabbling upon that 
of the Yacht, which seems to like the idea of Skerry 
Vhor as little as the Commissioners. At length, by 
dint of exertion, comes in sight this long ridge of 
rocks (chiefly under water) on which the tide breaks 
in a most tremendous style. There appear a few low, 
broad rocks at one end of the reef, which is about a 
mile in length. These are never entirely under water 
though the surf dashes over them. Pull through a 
very heavy swell with great difficulty, and approach 
a tremendous surf dashing over black pointed rocks — 



248 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

contrive to land well wetted. We took possession of 
the rock in the name of the Commissioners, and gener- 
ously bestowed our own great names on its crags and 
creeks. The rock was carefully measured by Mr. S. 
It will be a most desolate position for a Light-house — 
the Beli Rock and Eddystone a joke to it, for the 
nearest land is the wild island of T3Tee, at fourteen 
miles distance. So much for the Skerry Vhor." 

As might have been expected, the Commissioners 
were discouraged at the aspect of affairs and delayed 
the work from year to year, but at last, in 1834, the 
Board placed this serious undertaking in the hands of 
Mr. Alan Stevenson. 

Mr. Stevenson has left us a thrilling account of his 
noble work on Skerr3^more Rocks, than which no 
worthier monument was ever left behind to the mem- 
ory of a gifted and conscientious man. 

In the first place he had to build barracks for his 
workmen on the Isles of Tyree and Mull, and then 
to begin the foundation of the tower on the only one 
of the gneiss rocks of the reef which was broad 
enough for the purpose, and thi-s is but barely so, for 
at high water little remains around the tower's base 
but a narrow band of a few feet of rugged rocks, 
washed into gullies by the sea, which plays through 
them almost incessantly. 



lii'liP''' 




SOMETHIiNG ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 25 I 

Everything had to be thought of and provided for 
beforehand ; even so small a matter as the want of a 
little clay for tamping holes might have stopped the 
work for a time. 

Piers were built at Mull where the granite was 
quarried, and all sorts of conveniences and contriv- 
ances for the vessels and tug in use. 

The poor workmen suffered dreadfully from sea- 
sickness when compelled to live on their vessel, so 
they erected a temporary wooden barrack on the rock, 
but it was completely swept away in a November gale, 
destroying the work of a season in a single night. 
The dauntless men went to work again, however, and 
built another shelter which stood so successfully that 
it was finally taken down several years after the Light- 
house was completed. 

Alan Stevenson tells us of their life in this wave- 
washed eyrie, where he was perched forty feet above 
the sea-beaten rock with 'a goodly company of thirty 
men, where often for many a weary night and day 
they were kept prisoners by the weather, anxiously 
looking for supplies from the shore. At such times 
they were generally obliged to stay in bed, where 
alone they found an effectual shelter from the wind 
and spray which searched every cranny in their walls. 
More than once the fearfulness of the storm drove the 



252 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

more timid from their frail abode, which the sea 
threatened to overwhelm, out on the bare rock where 
the roofless wall of the Light-house offered a safer 
defence against the perils of the wind and waves. 

Innumerable were the delays and disappointments 
which tried the courage and faith of Stevenson and 
his brave band. It was a good lesson in the school 
of patience, and they learned to trust in something 
stronger than an arm of flesh. More than once their 
cranes and materials were swept away by the waves, 
and the workmen left, desponding and idle. They 
incurred daily risks in landing and in blasting the 
splintery gneiss, and in the falling of heavy bodies 
in the narrow space to which they were confined. For 
all, they met with no loss of life or limb, and main- 
tained good health in spite of being obliged to live on 
salt provisions for six summers. 

But the hardships and responsibilities by no means 
end with the building of the Light-house ; the keeper 
who has it in charge holds a most important position, 
for upon the skill of his hands in the management 
of the delicate costly lenses and machinery, the clear- 
ness of his head, and the courage of his heart, as well 
as his honesty and fidelity, depends, even more than 
upon the captain of a vessel, the safety of many 
precious lives and millions of property ; so it is 



SOMETHING ABOUT LICiH l-Hv>i:SE.S. 253 

of the first importance that he be intelligent, efiicient 
and trustworthy. 

A Light which has been visible for years cannot be 
suffered to be extinct tor one hour without endanger- 
ing a vessel's safety. The failure to illuminate at the 
proper time might prove fatal to the contiding mariner. 

In England it is a situation for life unless the 
holder prove unworthy, with a pension if superannua- 
led ; but in our own country the appointments are in a 
measure political, and consequently liable to be tem- 
porary. This circumstance is deplored by the Board 
which sometimes in this way loses valuable servants 
after they have gained a skill and experience which 
only comes with time ; and raw, untried hands have 
to be placed in positions of trust. It is hoped that 
some change will soon be brought about in this 
matter. 

A year or more ago a gentleman, who holds an im- 
portant position in the office of the Light-house Board 
and is specially interested in the comfort and welfare 
of the keepers, came in the course of a tour he was 
making on one of the Supply Ships, which carry half- 
yearly stores to the different posts, to a very isolated 
Light-house off tke Florida coast, twenty miles from 
any human habitation and sixteen from terra finna. 
Just before the arrival of the vessel a little child of 



254 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

the keeper had died, and was about to be buried in 
the sea without so much as a word of prayer being 

said over it. Mr. was shocked to find that these 

poor people in their isolation seemed to have no idea 
of religion, and that there was not a book of any 
kind at the station. The parents made no objection 
to his reading the burial service over the poor baby, 
out of a little prayer-book which he happened to have 
in his pocket, and he went away determined to do his 
part towards making good the deficiency he had dis- 
covered ; for on investigation it was found that very 
many Light-houses were quite as much cut off from 
books as the one he had visited, and one instance had 
dccurred of a poor fellow who had actually gone 
crazy, from sheer mental starvation, in his loneliness. 
Many persons have interested themselves in 

Mr. 's scheme. An appropriation has been asked 

from Congress for supplying reading matter to the 
six hundred and more Light-houses along our coast ; 
and in the mean time private individuals have sent in 
contributions in the way of old books and magazines. 
The lady and gentlemen clerks at the Light-house 
Board have been most kind and helpful in the matter ; 
for they always feel an interest in the condition of the 
keepers and their families, and when cases of suffer- 
ing come to their knowledge, as Jately, when a keeper 




illiiil^ 



SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 257 

at the South was burnt out and lost all his posses- 
sions, are prompt with their assistance. In this in- 
stance they helped to sort and arrange the motley 
piles of donated literature, which was then bound up 
nicely, in uniform volumes, at the Government Print- 
ing Office, and a neat little library-case of strong oak 
wood was made, fitted up with shelves and hav in- 
heavy metal clasps and handles ; and just so many 
volumes, always including a Bible, were placed in each 
case. 

The Store-ships will now go out with a goodly lading 
of these supplies; one will be left at each station, 
and the next time the ship comes round the old case 
will be taken away and a fresh one substituted. In 
this way a circulating library system is established, 
and every Keeper well supplied with abundance of 
wholesome and entertaining reading matter. 

You children, with your wealth of books and de- 
lightful magazines coming ^ery month, can perhaps 
hardly appreciate the boon this kind thought, so well 
carried out, will prove ; for you have never known 
what it is to be shut up in a lonely tower, day after 
day, month after month, with no outside interest or 
amusement. You can do your part towards brighten- 
ing the lives of these men with their wives and chil- 
dren, and I am sure you will be glad of the oppor- 



258 SOMETHING ABOUT LIGHT-HOUSES. 

tiinity. Many of you, no doubt, have piles of old 
magazines or story papers, or even of books, for which 
you have no farther use. Would you not like to put 
up a nice package of these, and send them by Express 
to the " Care of the Chief Clerk of the Light-house 
Board, Washington, D. C. " ? 

New supplies are constantly needed, and in this 
way you could not fail to give pleasure to those who 
have little enough in a life of monotonous duty. 



JOHN'S SCHOOLMASTER, 




OHNNY 
OILMAN 

was a bad boy. He did not like to go to school. 
Arithmetic was of " no account," history " no good." 



2 6o John's schoolmaster. 

and geography he would learn by and by, by " trot- 
ting around.'" 

A crisis came at last, and it was resolved that if 
he would not study with the boys he should not play 
with them, and he was shut up in the attic in solitary 
confinement. Poor John was miserable at first, but 
presently he began to look about for amusement. 

Among the attic treasures he found a box full of 
old rusty coins which once belonged to his uncle 
Fred. John wondered why any one saved such old 
dirty pennies ; but he idly began to count them, and 
then to look at the different heads they bore, and to 
read the inscriptions. He found the coins were of 
different countries, and to occupy his time, he se- 
lected the cents of his own country. Many of the 
coins were so covered with dirt and rust, that he 
could not tell their date ; and while he was wondering 
what means to use to clean them, a servant brought 
his dinner, and through her he obtained some fine 
scouring brick and chamois skin. After dinner he 
went to work, and as the black coins began to shine 
out like new pennies, here a feature and there a 
date suddenly legible, the boy felt like the excavators 



John's schooi,master. 261 

at Pompeii and Nineveh as they came upon the 
treasures of those long-buried cities. 

The afternoon passed quickly away. Twilight 
found him still at work. Before him lay a row of 
shining United States cents, arranged according to 
date. The oldest bore the figures 1793. On one side 
was the head of the Goddess of Liberty, on the other <^ ide 
thirteen links. There were also cents of the same date 
when to the head of the Goddess was added the Liberty- 
cap, while the other side of the coin bore the olive- 
wreath of peace. With the succeeding years, the 
head of the bold Goddess with her flowing hair 
disappeared from the cents, and in its place was 
a finely chiselled head, with classic Grecian features 
and the hair bound with a fillet. The cents seemed 
to rejoice in this last device, and bore it proudly 
until the whole race of large copper cents disap- 
peared in 1857, and into their places stepped the 
small nickel cent which had appeared the previous 
year; but this coin was crowded out in 1864 for the 
small bronze cent, which still holds the place of favri. 
John could find no cent of 18 15, and afterward dis- 
covered that no cent was coined that year. 




Y 



262 John's schoolmaster. 

The tea-bell was John's signal of re- 
lease. As he entered the supper-room 
!)is brothers and sisters stole glances, 
expecting to see him look particular!}- 
sullen, and they were very much as- 
, lonished to encounter a pair of eyes 
bright and shining. John was 
not much of a talker ; but to-night 
he evidently had something to 
^ ^ay, and the following concise 
^'ialogue almost immediately took 
place : — 

" Father, when did they 
", first have cents in this 
;■. country?" 

"In 1792 they 

\ fii st <T]D] eaied 

/ --^^t - -y f i(;m the 



X 




,^^<*vxx^ -f 




John's schoolmaster. 263 

" Whose idea was it ? " 

"Two years before their appearance Robert Morris 
proposed the coin, and Thomas Jefferson gave it its 
name." 

" Who was Robert Morris, and how did Thomas 
Jefferson happen to be the one to name it ? " 

" If you study the history of the United States as 
you ought, you will know all about them." 

" Why was the head of the bold woman put on the 
first cent? " 

" You are mistaken. The first cents bore the 
head of Washington ; but it was the time of the 
French Revolution, and the enthusiasm of the 
French reached America, and caused them to 
change the noble head of Washington for that of the 
French Goddess of Liberty." 

" What did they do for cents before that time ? " 

"They had English pennies, half-pennies and 
farthings. They also had copper coins of three 
times the value of King George's half-pennies. 
These were first made in 1737 at Granby in Con- 
necticut, by John Higie}', a blacksmith. On one 
side of the coin was the figure of a deer, and the 



264 



JOHN S SCHOOLMASTER. 



inscription, ' Value me as you please ; ' on the other 
side were three sledge-hammers, wearing. crowns, and 
around the edge the inscription, ' I am good copper.'" 
" Can you get me one of those first coppers ? " 
" Probably not ; there are not a dozen in existence. 
Besides these there were colonial cents. There was 
the Fugio cent of 1787, which bore on one side 
a sun -dial, and below it the 
inscription, ' Mind your busi- 
ness; ' on the other side were 
thirteen links, and the words, 
'We are one.' There were 
the Massachusetts cent and 
half-cent of 1787 and 1788, 
the Connecticut cent first is- 
sued in 1785 and continued for four years, the Vermont 
cent of the same dates, the Virginia half-penny 
of 1773, the Carolina cent of 1694 bearing the figure 
of an elephant, the Louisiana cent first issued in 
1721, and the New Jersey cent of 1786, 1787, 1788. 
On the New Jersey copper was inscribed the national 
motto, ^ E pluribiis iiniim.'' " 

" What does ' E pluribus unum ' mean ? " 




CROWN OF GEORGE IV. 



John's schoolmaster. 



265 




HALF-CROWN — WIL- 
LIAM IV. 



" If you studied your Latin lessons as you 
ouglit, you would know. This motto appeared for 
the lirst time on a copper coin 
struck in 1786 from a private 
mint at Newburg, N. Y, In 1796 
this motto was inscribed upon 
our gold coins, and was borne by 
our silver coins in 1798. In 1834 
it disappeared from the gold coins, 
and showed that the gold was not 
the same number of carats line as before. In 1837 
the silver coins discarded the motto, but of late 
years the new silver dollar bears it again." 

" Why do you say gold is so many carats 
fine ? " 

" The carat is a small bean that grows on a tree in 
Central Africa; its weight is uniform, and thus it is 
used as a unit of weight for gold. Eighteen carats 
fine means that in every twenty-four carats' weight of 
gold there are eighteen carats' weight of perfectly 
pure gold." 

John would have kept his father talking all of the 
evening, but he was called away on business, and the 



266 



JOHN S SCHOOLMASTER. 



boy retired to the library to find out for himself some 
of the things he ought to know. 

The next morning when consigned again to the 
attic, he selected the English coins. Many of them 
bore the heads of the four Georges, then came the 
head of William the Fourth, and last of all, Queen 
Victoria. There were Canada coins bearing the 
heads of English sovereigns, and coins from India 
with the head of Victoria upon them. He did not 
understand about these last 
coins; and when he asked his 
father about them in the even- 
ing, he was briefly told that his 
geography and his history 
would give him the informa- 
tion. 

Among the coins John found 
one bearing the head of Constatine the Great, 
and wrapped around the coin was a paper, on 
which was written a history of this particular 
coin : " It was one of those found not many years 
ago in an old Roman camp in French Alsatia. 
Some laborers in digging came upon an old chest 




GOLD FIVE-POUND PIECE 
— VICTORIA. 



JOHN S SCHOOLMASTER. 



267 




which contained seventy-five hundred bronze coins 

from the mint of Constantine. These coins had 

probably been buried in the ground since before 

the middle of the fourth century, when the Roman 

legion encamped there." John's father 

hinted to him just enough of the history 

of this Roman Emperor of 306 to 

make the boy eager to know more of bronze of con- 
stantine. 
this first Christian Emperor, whose vis- 323 a. d. 

ion of the cross had led him on to victory. 

John stayed in the attic three days ; and the 

result was that the little copper schoolmaster 

inspired him with a new ambition, and he gladly 

went back to his studies at the Academy and became 

an industrious pupil. Some time after his marked 

improvement at school, his father gave him a large 

box of coins which uncle Fred had left to be given to 

John when he was old enough to 

appreciate them. 

Upon opening the box, John's 

delight was great to find it full 

of silver coins, not only of Amer- 

THALF.R OF FRED. ica, but froui ucarly all thc couu- 

\V!SI. III. — PRUSSIA. 




268 John's schoolmaster. 

tries from which coins can be obtained. Some were 
finely preserved, and the heads and inscriptions as 
clearly cut as when they first appeared from the 
mint ; others required much labor to bring out their 
hidden story. 

Chemistry, which John once despised, he now 
made his servant ; and by its aid he was saved days 
of labor in cleaning the coins. Each one of the rare 
old coins seemed to have a history, and John sought 
it out from books and scholarly men, who were 
pleased to help the young enthusiast. Coins bearing 
the head of Frederick the Great made him study the 

histories of Carlyle, Macaulay and Ab- ^ ^ 

bott, and he traced the sfrowth of Prus- /?/fi^»4\ 
sia from the Marquisate of Branden- '^f^^iJ^ 
burg to its now vast dom.inions, for the ^"^ 

PENNY OF WIL- 

story of its rulers was written on the liam i. — 1066- 
coins from the first Frederick to the 
Frederick William IV. whose head shone out on that 
perfect specimen of a coin, einthaleroi 1856, and on to 
that last coin bearing the head of William I., King of 
Prussia. The head of Maria Theresa invited him to the 
study of Austria. The head of Napoleon and the old 



JOHN S SCHOOLMASTER. 



269 




MEXICAN DOLLAR — 1866. 



French kings led him to the study of France. A Mexi- 
can peso of 1866, bearing the head of MaximiUan, 
urged him to the study of Mexico, and the story of 
tb.c unfortunate emperor and the beautiful Carlotta 
thrilled him with an interest which sent him to the 
study of Belgium, not only in 
the past but in the present, 
eagerly searching for some 
news of the sorrow-stricken 
empress, who was still waiting 
for the dead emperor. 

Fie found the earliest date 
on English coins was in 1549, during the reign of Edward 
VI. A William I. coin sent him back to 1066 and 
the early history of England. Specimens of the 
"clipped coins" made him rejoice when William 
set up the mint in the Tower of London in 1558, 
and the new "milled money" appeared, with the 
raised rim and fluted edge. 

The coins of his own country inspired him with a 
feeling of patriotism. They whispered of the Revo- 
lution, when the head of King George disappeared 
fiom the cents, and Liberty became the inscription 



270 JOHNS SCHOOLMASTER. 

on the coins, and the watchword of our land. The 
changes that the years wrought in the devices were 
of great interest. Romance also added its charm to 
some of the coins. His specimens of the pine-tree 
sliilling, coined in Massachusetts when together with 
Maine it formed a province, chanced to belong to 
those given as a marriage portion to the daughter of 
John Hull, who was Master of the Mint in 1652, 
when the pine-tree shillings were struck, and \vho 
gave his daughter as many shillings as her own 
weight would balance in the scales. 

The coins taught John not only geograph)^ and 
histor}^, but the nickel five-cent piece taught him the 
metric system of \veights and measures. Its weight 
being five grammes, two of the coins weighed a deca- 
gramme. Its diameter being two centimeters, the 
length of five was a decimeter. The measure of the 
length was also a guide to the capacity, as the kilo- 
liter is a cubic meter. 

The coins also led John to a study of metals, and 
of their distribution throughout the world, also to 
the different materials used as money in different 
ages of the world. He found not only gold and 



JOHNS SCHOOLMASTER, 271 

silver and copper used, but brass among many 
nations. Indeed, it seemed the favorite metal of 
the Chinese, who had used it for thousands of 
years for their one coin — the cash. The old Lace- 
demonians and Carthagenians used iron, and Lycurgus 
even banished gold and silver, and made the cum- 
brous iron coins take their place. He found that 
not only metals were used as money, but learned of 
the engraved stones of the Ethiopians, the wampum 
of our American Indians, of the polished shells of 
barbarous tribes, and how once an attempt was made to 
coin oyster-shells into money in our own United States. 
The study of the old Roman and other foreign 
coins, with the royal heads upon them, made the boy 
feel the lack of a similar history written upon the 
coins of his own country, and caused him to mourn 
that the coins had not continued to bear the head 
of Washington during his administration, and of 
every succeeding President during his term of office ; 
then each of our rulers would have been commemo- 
rated, so that not only the youth of our own land, 
but those of foreign lands, might learn in this happy 
way of the presidents of our Republic. 



272 



JOHN S SCHOOLMASTER 



John Gilman is no longer a bad boy. He has de- 
veloped into a scholar, and he cherishes a secret 
hope of some day — ■ not of being the President of the 
United States — but the Secretary of the Treasury, 
when he will use his power and influence to revolu- 
tionize the coinage of our country, and cause one set 
of coins, at least, to bear the head of the President 
then in power. Meantime, he already has carried 
out one invention. He would not keep his coins 
packed away in boxes ; he wished them arranged in 
order, and the face of each to shine out in a suitable 
frame like the face of a friend. He 
questioned his father in regard to 
the arrangement of the great col- 
lections, but he was not satisfied 
with the idea of having them hung 
up in glass cases like those at the ^^^^' 

mint in Philadelphia, or of their lying down on velvet 
cushions as at the Museum in Edinburgh ; so he devised 
a com album, and obtained permission from his 
father to have some made to order. Now John's 
fine collection is arranged in these albums, which 
take up but little room as compared with glass cases. 




BUY A BROOM! 
BROOM ! " 



BUY A 




ST summer while on our va- 
cation trip along the sea-coast 
we made our plans so as to 
stop over a train at Barnstable 
that we might have time to 



take a look at that ancient 
burgh, but found to our dis- 
may when it was too late, that 
of tiine we had altogether too 
mucli, for when we stepped out 
of the car it was seven o'clock in the morning, and our 
train would not leave till four in the afternoon ! And 
to make matters worse it began to rain. \\q. man- 
aged, however, at intervals when the rain held up, 
to get a pretty good idea of the place, but were 
driven back to the station by the persistent drizzle 



274 BUY A BROOM! BUY A BROOM! 

long before noon ; and there we seemed destined to 
spend live tedious hours, with not much of anything 
to do, except to get the \va3'-bills of the Old Colony 
Railroad by heart, and commit to memory whatever 
might be available in the other advertisements posted 
on the walls. 

We were beginning to be desperate, when my com- 
panion, strolling about, discovered a small placard 
saying that fruit was for sale in the freight depot. I 
set out to explore, having visions of apples and 
pears, but especially peaches and grapes before me. 

Passing the wide freightage doors, I came to a 
narrow one which was wide open ; so I first looked, 
and then walked in. It was an unfinished place 
where a slim young woman was busy about her 
housework, while a sick-looking man was "standing 
round." There was a cooking-stove, and she was 
taking pies out of the oven, which she set in a row 
on a cumbrous wooden bench that filled all the 
opposite end of the room, and under it were stored 
bunches of something unknown to me which I found 
afterwards was broom-corn. She was pretty and 
girlish, and had blue eyes, and fair hair. 

She asked me to sit down, and told me they had 
been living there off and on for three years. " We 




\VJ/V;;;;-^V\^V-.\\\^\^'; 







ik= 



v^ VV\^ '^?;k A^^ 



" BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 277 

used to live in ' Commons,' but we did not like, and 
so came up here. My husband is not well, and I go 
out washing, and take in washing." 

It was a very queer place to live in, but neat and 
comfortable, yet it seemed just as if they might have 
been moving, and had merely stopped here over 
night and set up their stove in order to cook some- 
thing to eat. 

Upon inquiring for the fruit, about which it began 
to seem as if there must be either a mistake or a 
mystery for nothing of the kind was to be seen 
except the dish of apples left over from the pies, she 
directed me up-stairs ; and up the steep narrow 
stairs I went, nearly stumbling over a great black 
dog (which she assured me would not bite) that lay 
stretched at the threshold of a dreary kind of room 
which had one occupant — a man with his shirt- 
sleeves rolled up to the elbows at work near one of 
the windows at the farther ^d. And now I remem- 
bered that we had seen him at his bench there as we 
sat in the depot, and wondered what he was doing. 

No indications of fruit ; but there were four ma- 
chines and a stack of brooms^ and the litter of shreds 
and waste, and I was about to retreat with an apol- 
ogy after making known my errand. He said I had 



278 "buy a BROO-M ! BUY A BROOM ! " 

made no mistake, but he was out of everything except 
confectionery ; peanuts, dates and figs. ^ So as there 
were no apples, no pears, no peaches, no grapes, 
after all my perseverance, dates I would have, and 
he went to a closet where he said he kept them, 
holding his hands out before him in such a way that 
I knew he could not see even before he said, " I am 
blind." 

After he had weighed them and received his pay, 
there were a few words about his business, which he 
seemed delighted to talk about, and because I put 
a question or two, he asked if I was a reporter, and 
said " that used to be my business. I was on the 
reportorial staff of the Pennsylvania legislature, when 
from overtasking my eyes, and other causes, I be- 
came blind. I went to the Institution at South 
Boston, and learned to make brooms so that I could 
earn my living." 

He was full of interest in the work he had been 
compelled to fall back upon, and invited me to come 
in with my companion and see how it was done. 

" Now I wish," said he, " that I had some stuff 
ready. I have to soak it before I use it. But your 
train does not go till four o'clock. I will put some 
to soak immediately, and if you will come in about 



r ^ 




\ .;.;('/. |,;^i//// . 



4 '-y 



A GAY CAVALCADE. 



'• BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOiM ! " 28 1 

three I will begin at the beginning and make a 
broom, so that you can then see the whole process." 

To be sure we were glad to go, and he did as he 
said he would, and explained every particular, even 
to the cost. 

" The broom-corn comes from the West," he said, 
" though a good deal grows in the Mohawk valley, and 
the largest broom establishment in the United States 
is at Schenectady. 

" It often grows, if thriving stalks, ten or twelve 
feet tall ; it can be cultivated here, but not so profit- 
ably. It comes in large bales, weighing anywhere 
from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pounds. 
Where I buy mine in Boston it costs me six cents a 
pound, though the price varies. 

" I sort it out on a 'sorting bench,' first, for if I 
took 'it as it is, the brooms would be of queer quali- 
ties. Sorting is a regular trade to learn. 

*' The next thing, I tie it in bundles, and then it is 
ready for use. I put as many of these to soak the 
night before, as I want to make up in the day. I 
leave it in the water half an hour, then let it drain, 
and it keeps damp enough for working; if it was 
dry it would break when I sew it. Here you see 
this lot, from which I shall make the broom. I call 



282 "buy a broom! buy a broom!" 

it 'stock' and when it is all prepared. I keep it on 
here; this is a 'stock bench ' or 'rack,' " pointing to 
the wooden frame which filled the space between the 
two windows. 

"You see I have three machines besides my cut- 
ter — the stock-frame, the winding-machine and the 
press. They were made at Schenectady, and they 
cost seventy-five dollars. You see one needs capital 
even to make brooms, but some friends helped me 
to get started, ^ly cutter I will tell you about 
by-and-by as I come to use it. 

" Now I am ready for the handle. These come a 
hundred in a bundle, and are made of the best 
spruce — these are from ^[aine — and each has a 
hole where the broom is put on. Now this is what 
I do first." 

Here he secured the handle into a vise belonging 
to the winding-machine which was just high enough 
for him to stand at and work comfortably without 
stooping, and had also connected with it the '^ rag- 
wheel " from which the wire was unwound by a few 
rotations of a wheel below, while at the same time it 
was wound taut around the broom, 

"They formerly used twine," he said, " but there 
were objections to it, as you will readily see, and 




THE COMEDY OF BROOMS — My«. MMA'S LITTLE HOUSEMAID. 



" BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 285 

now we have wire, and it is galvanized to prevent it 
from rusting. It costs me twelve cents a pound ; it 
used to cost seventeen." 

Having made the handle fast, he took a bunch of 
the corn, smoothed it carefully through his hands to 
even it, laid it against the handle, put his foot on 
the treadle or whatever the hour-glass shaped piece 
of mechanism might be named, and with one or two 
revolutions wired it tight. This lot had the butts 
left on, but from the next layer he sliced them down 
wedge-fashion with a very sharp knife, having se- 
cured them to those already on by a strap which 
could be fastened at such length as he chose by 
means of a leather button ; another and another tier^ 
each time of choicer quality, succeeded, and so on 
till the stock for that broom was used up. 

"This," he explained, "is a number eight broom. 
If there had been time I would have made a ////;-/ 
broom, which is the best. (The ' hurl " is the finest 
part of the corn, the heart.) I make five sizes : 
number six is the smallest, and it is the smallest 
manufactured in this country. I can make twenty 
of those in a da}-. Of the number ten, the hurl. I 
have made twelve, and they sell for forty cents 
apiece. Sometimes when I have got a lot of brooms 



286 " BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 

on hand I hire a horse and cart, take a boy with me, 
and go round the country to sell them ; and people 
will object to paying my prices, and I can't always 
make them believe that it pays to buy a good arti- 
cle, even if it is a broom. They sometimes say that 
they can get enough of them at fourteen cents, but I 
tell them when they pay fourteen cents for a broom, 
they only get a fourteen-cent broom." 

He had now a rough broom, which he released 
from the vise and took over to the press which had 
three pairs of cruel-looking irons that he said were 
*' the jaws," of sizes to shut round brooms of three 
different thicknesses and hold firmly, while he did 
the next thing, which he made known in this wise : 

*' Now I shall sew it. The number six have only 
two sewings — all they need, they are so thin. The 
others have three. They are all sewed with waxed 
linen twine : the higher sizes have pink, because it 
looks better ; the others have tow-colored. You see 
my needle ? It is some like a sail-maker's, but not 
exactly. I have two, though one wall last a life-time. 
I keep them in this oiled rag to prevent them from 
rusting. They cost fifty cents apiece, and were made 
of the very best of steel. See what nice metal it 
is ! " He held out one, shaped more like a paddle 



" BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 289 

than anylliing else, polished to the last degree, and 
as lustrous as silver; then he threw it on the floor 
to show us how it would ring. 

" Broom tools of all kinds are made at Schenec- 
tady, but my needles, knives and combs come from 
Hadley. I will show you the combs pretty soon ; 
the knives you have already seen. Let me see — 
where did I lay that otlier needle? No, }0u need 
not look for it ; I must find it myself. I have to be 
careful where I leave my things, so that I can jDut my 
hand on them the moment I want them. Oh, here 
it is," picking it up with his long supple fingers, and 
rolling it securely up in the oiled cloth. 

" Now you notice 1 put on this pahn,'^ and he 
held up what looked like a mitt just large enough to 
cover the palm of the hand and the wrist, having a 
hole to slip the thumb through and leaving that and 
the fingers free. It was made of cowhide, and 
sew^ed together on the back, while in the inside was 
set a thimble against which the needle was to be 
pressed in doing the hard sewing, w'hile the leather 
protected the skin from being fretted by the 
broom. 

" It is not just like a sail-maker's palm," he added. 
''I have one of those which a man gave me, and I 



290 '' BUY A BROOM . BUY A BROOM ! 

will show it to you." So going again to his dark 
closet, he groped for it among his multifarious 
things, and came back with one similar, except that 
it was of raw-hide, and the thimble was a little pro- 
jection looking like a pig's toe. 

He sewed the broom through and through, j^ro- 
ducing the three pink rows. Then he said he would 
comb it to clear away the loose and broken stems ; 
and so he passed through it a sort of hetchel made 
of thirty small knife-blades set in a frame, " which 
cost me," said he, " more than you would think — 
that comb was five dollars ; and now I comb it 
out with this one to remove the small stuff and the 
seeds."' And releasing it from the clamp_, he took 
down a fine comb from a nail, and repeated the 
process. 

" And now it is ready to be trimmed. I lay it on 
this hay-cutter, which some friends bought cheap for 
me at a fair, and answered my purpose after a few 
alterations, and I trim it off, nice and even at one 
end — and now it is done. You have seen a broom 
made." 

That was true. Our only regret was that we could 
not have that same broom to take away ; but on our 
zig-zag journey, when we were likely enough to stop 




" PLANT THE BROOM ! " 



" BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 293 

over or turn off anywhere, that was an absurdity 
not to be thought of. We did, however, " buy a 
broom" that we could ^d.V^ — and an excellent one it 
proved — and we accepted a small package of broom- 
corn seed which the blind workman was anxious 
we should have, " to plant in some spare spot just 
to see how it looks when growing." 

When we went down-stairs, the woman was out 
on the platform, her yellow hair tossing about in the 
wind, and she seemed as happy with her meagre 
accommodations in the freight house as if she were 
owner of a mansion. She begged us to go in and 
get some of her apples, we were welcome, and " they 
did not cost me anything," she added. She told us 
more about her fellow-tenant, and said he paid half 
the rent, " and he used to board with us, but now 
he boards up in town, and he goes back and forth 
alone, his self." 

This curious and pleasant little episode made us 
so ready to be interested in everything pertaining 
to brooms that it seemed a kind of sarcasm of cir- 
cumstances when, at a junction not very far along 
our route, we saw, perched upon his cart, a pedler 
dolno^ his best to sell his brooms to the crowd on 



294 " BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 

their way home from one of the Cape camp-meetings. 
His words were just audible as the train went on : 

" Buy a broom ! Buy a broom ! Here's the place 
to buy a cheap broom, for fowteen cents ! only 
fourteen cents ! A broom for fourteen cents ! So 
CHEAP ! " 

And it happened not many days later that some- 
body read in our hearing that the broom-corn is 
a native of India, and that Dr. Franklin was the 
means of introducing it into this country ; from see- 
ing a whisk of it in the hands of a lady he began to 
examine it — being of an inquiring mind, as every- 
body knows — and found a seed, which he planted. 

The street-sweeper's broom is the genuine besom, 
made of birch stems, cut out in the country, and 
brought into town tied up in bundles like fagots ; 
suitable enough for those stalwart men who drag 
them along so leisurely, but burdensome for the 
hands of the wretched little waifs, who, tattered and 
unkempt, make a pretence of keeping the crossings 
clean ; who first sweep, and then hold out a small 
palm for the penny, dodging the horses' hoofs, and 
just escaping by a hair's breadth the wheels of truck 
or omnibus in their attempts to secure the coin, if 
some pitiful passer-by stops at the pipmg call : 



" BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! '' 

" Please ma'am, a penii}' ! " 

That is the ahnost tragic prose of brooms. 



=95 




THE TRAGEDY OF BROOMS — THE CROSSING SWF.EPER. 

But there is a bit of poetic history that ought not 



296 " BUY A BROOM ! BUY A BROOM ! " 

to be forgotten, for it was a sprig of the lovely broom 
bush — call it by the daintier name of heath if you 
will — such as in some of its varieties grows wild in 
nearly every country in Europe, a tough little flow- 
ering evergreen, symbol of humility, which was once 
embroidered on the robes, worn in the helmet, and 
sculptured on the effigies of a royal house of Eng- 
land. Which of the stories of its origin is triie, per 
haps no one at this distant day can determine ; but 
whether a penitent pilgrim of the family was scourged 
by twigs of it — the pla?itage?iesta — or a gallant hun- 
ter plucked a spray of it and put in his helmet, it is 
certain that the humble plant gave the stately name 
of " Plantagenet " to twelve sovereigns of that king- 
dom ; and their battle-cry — which meant to them 
conquest and dominion, but has a very practical 
sound to us, and a specially prosaic meaning to one 
Ike the blind broom-maker of this simple story 
— was this : 

" Flant the b?'00f?i f Plant the broom /" 



JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW 
DISHES ARE MADE. 

AH ! I know something ! I know something 
you girls don't know ! I know how they 
make dishes what you eat off of ; and it's just the 
same way they make dolly's dishes, I guess. 

Yes, I do know. And I've got some pictures papa 
drawed ior me, too, and I'll tell you all about them. 
They're in my pocket right under my handkerchief. 
I put them under my handkerchief because I don't 
want them to get dirty. I'^^e got some 'lasses candy 
on top. I haven't got enough, or I'd give you all 
some. 

Papa took me to 2i pottery. I don't know why they 
call it a pottery, for they make cups and saucers, and 
sugar-bowls, and everything. First the man took us 
through the dressing-i'oom. I did not see any dresses, 
nor anybody dressing themselves. I only saw piles 



298 JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE. 

of dishes and men and women hammering at them. 
I asked papa why they called it that, and he said, 
wait till we come back, for that was the very last of 
all. So we went on into the yard. I looked into 
one part of the building where it was all dark, with 
three great chimneys, broad on the ground and nar- 
row high up. But the man and papa went right on, 
round to the other side of the building. 

There wasn't anything to see, though, but horses 
and carts hauling clay, and great heaps of it on the 
ground. I wouldn't have called it anything but dirt, 
but papa said it was kaolin^ not exactly dirt, but clay. 
He spelt it for me. 

There was another of those big chimneys in the 
yard, only bigger. The man said that was where 
they dried the clay. Then he led us to a little door 
in the side of the house, and we went in. That 
brought us into a little room where they were getting 
the clay ready. 

First there was a sand-screen — like Mike uses, 

where they sieved it. 




- , Next they weighed it 
and put it into bins. 
^^^..'..N ''^-' ' .^ It looked like fine^ 

THE POTTER'S WHEEL. ^^^^ flQ^^. 



JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE. 29^ 

A little piece off from the bins there was a big 
deep box. They were mixing clay and water in it, 
and making a paste. It looked like lime when 
they're making mortar. The box leaked awfully, 
and white paste was running down on the floor. 

At the end of the box they had a pump working, 
and it was pumping the paste into what they called 
?i press. It was too funny ^for anything. I couldn't 
more than half understand it. But it looks some- 
thing like a baby-crib, only it has slats across the 
top, and they're close together. They have a lot of 
bags in be-tween the slats, and the clay gets into 
the bags and gets pressed flat, so that most of the wa- 
ter is squeezed out. When they take it out of the 
bags it looks something like a sheet of shortcake 
before it's cut or baked. Then they roll a lot of 
them together, and that's what they make dishes out 
of. They call it biscuit. 

The man took us down into the cellar under the 
little room to show us the engine that made the paste 
and pumped and pressed the clay. I was afraid, and 
didn't want to go down, but papa said it was only a 
little one. It was nice and clean down there, with a 
neat brick floor, but awful hot. I was glad to come 
up. 

After the little roo^n there's one biof room where 



300 JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE. 

they don't do much of an3^thing. It is like a large 
shed, for it is dark and has no floor. The dressing- 
room where we were first is on one side,. and the dark 
room where the big chimneys are, is back of it. We 
went through it, and over to one side and up the 
stairs to the second story. 

It's nice up there. It's one great big room, five 
times as big as our Sunday School room, with ever so 
many windows. All around the sides and down the 
middle, and cross-ways, and out in the wings are 
shelves, piled full of brand-new dishes. And there 
are tables all along the walls, and that's where they 
make them. I conld stand and look all day. 

I saw two boys throwing up a great big lump of 
clay and catching it ; then cutting it with a string 
and putting the pieces together again, then throwing 
it up again, until it made me dizzy to look at tliem. 
I asked the man what they were doing, and he said_, 
wedging the clay. That means taking the air out. 
They keep on doing that until there are no air-bubbles 
in it. 

We stopped and talked to a man who was making 
a sugar-bowl, and he told us how he did it. All the 
men have on the table in front of them a lump of 
clay, a wheel, some moulds, a sharp knife, a bucket 
of water with a sponge in it, and something like the 








THE KILN AND SAGGERS. 



JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE. 303 




MOULD FOR A CUP. 



slab of a round, marble-topped table, only it's made 
of plaster Paris, to work on. 

And do you know what the potter's-wheel is ? It's 

as old as the hills and it's in the 

Wasfe^^as^^^^^,*^^^ Bible, but I guess everybody don't 
f^^^^5%s^^>^ know what it is. It looks as if it 
"""""""'"^ was made of hard, smooth, baked 

white clay, and is something like 
a grindstone, only not half as 
thick. The grindstone stands up, 
but this lays fiat, with its round 
sid^ turned up, like the head of a barrel. And it's 
set on a pivot, like the needle of the compass in 
our geographies. 

The moulds are like Miss Fanny's wax-fruit moulds. 

They're made of plaster Paris, and they're round 

outside, and they have the shape of what the 

man wants to make on the inside, and they're in two 

pieces. Little things like cups are made 

in one mould ; but big things like pitchers 

■? msr / ^^^ made in two or three pieces, in two 

m C [ or three moulds, and then put together. 

\ I Handles and spouts and such things are 

V_y made separately in little moulds and put 

on afterwards. 

Here's the way. First the man cuts off 



HANDLE 

MOULD, 



304 JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW TIFHES ARE MADE. 

a piece of the biscuit, and kneads it on the plaster 
Paris slab. Then he takes one piece of the mould, 
fixes the clay in nicely, shaves off what he don't want, 
then puts on the other piece of the mould, and sets 
it on the wheel. He gives it a shove and sets it spin- 
ning. It stops itself after a while, then he opens the 
mould, and there is the dish. The clay keeps the 
same thickness all through, and fills both pieces of 
the mould. 

Then the man takes it out and sponges it. If it 
isn't just the right shape all he has to do is wet it, 
and it will come right. Then he puts on the handle 
or puts the pieces together, fixing them just so with 
his fingers and knife. It isn't very hard, but he has 
to be careful. The soft dishes look real cute. Then 
they're ready to be burnt the first time. 

We walked all around and saw here one man mak- 
ing cups, another, tureens, another, bird-baths, and 
every imaginable thing that is ever made in porcelain. 
Then we went down- stairs, through the dark rooms, 
into where the tall chimneys are. Then I found out 
they called them kilns, . They have at the bottom a 
prodigious furnace, over that a tremendous oven, 
where they put the dishes in to bake. 

But they don't put them right in just as they are, 
Ch, no. There were on the high shelves all around, a 







^' V.^ 



JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE. 307 

lot of things called saggers. They look something like 
bandboxes made of firebrick. The soft dishes are 
put in them, the lids are put on, and then they are 
piled up in the oven. Then the men build a big fire 
in the furnace, and let it burn for several days. 
When it goes out they let several more days go by for 
the kiln to cool, and then take out the saggers. When 
the dishes are taken out they are hard and rough and 
of a yellowish white. They build the fire after they 
get them in, and let it out and the kiln cool off before 
they take them out, because the men have to go in 
and out the big ovens. 

Wouldn't you think a pile of soft plates and saucers 
would burn all together and stick fast to each other .? 
Well, they don't. There are little things made of 
hard clay with three bars and three feet, and they put 
them in between dishes so that one plate has one in 
it, and the next plate sets on top of that, so that they 
can't stick together. Did yon ever see three little 
dark spots on the bottom of a saucer .? This is what 
makes them. There are lots and lots of these little 
stands lying all around everywhere, and broken jDieces 
of them and the clay, scattered like flour all over the 
ground and floors thick. 

We next went into the room back of the kilns. It 
had shelves all around, too, and there were piles of 




3o8 JENNIE FINDS OUT HOW DISHES ARE MADE. 

dishes after the first burning. A lot of women sat on 

stools on the floor and they were" 

brushing the fire cracks with some 

stuff out of little bottles. This was 

to fill them up so that the glazing rest for fla^i 

wouldn't run in. dishes. 

We went into another room at one 
side of the first and there's where they did the glaz- 
ing. They called it dipping. There was a large tank 
in the middle of the room with a deep red liquid in 
it. Papa asked the man what it was, and he said it 
was a secret preparation. The men dipped the 
dishes in, and they came out a beautiful pink, so 
pretty that it seemed a pity they couldn't stay so. 
There were shelves all around this room, too, and 
there the dishes look like they do when we see them 
— the pink glazing has turned white. 

There is nothing more done to them except the 
dressing. We had now gone all around, and were 
almost at the dressing-7'oom where we started. And 
when we went in again we found that the dressing 
was nothing but knocking off any rough lumps with a 
chisel. I remember every bit of it. And every time 
I look at dishes I think there are ever so many things 
we use every day and don't know anything about. 



DOLLY'S SHOES. 



CAN'T help wondering if any of tlie little 
maidens who are having so much comfort 
with their beloved dolls in these Christ- 
mas holidays, ever think that somebody 
must have taken a great deal of pains to 
dress them up so nicely, and above all, 
to make the tiny garments and hats and 
shoes. 

The doll's sJioes ! — so pretty, so dain- 
tily shaped, so beautifully stitched and 
trimmed, so perfectly, faultlessly finished 
from heel to toe, the "cunningest things " 
in all dolly's wardrobe — did it ever occur 
to the girlie "playing mother," to ask 
where they came from, and by whose 
V / dexterous fingers they were fashioned ? 

She knows well enough that when Angelina Chris- 
Jna, or Luella Rosa Matilda Jennette, has worn 



310 dolly's shoes. 

these out, there are enough to be bought in the toy 
shops for twenty-five or thh'ty cents a pair ; but who 
makes them ? 

That was the question which came into my head 
one day, and I set to work to find out — doing just 
what must suggest itself to anybody who wants infor- 
mation, whatever the subject : that is to say, I went 
to head-quarters, and asked questions. 

There are two places in Boston — one a " shoe and 
leather exchange," and the other the establishment of 
an importer and dealer in shoe store supplies, where 
they furnish doll's shoes " to the trade," as the phrase 
is : one is on Congress street, and the other on Han- 
over j and the proprietors, Mr. Daniels and Mr. 
Swanberg, instead of being amused at my errand, 
very kindly told me what I wanted to know. 

Some of the shoes are imported, but they are infe- 
rior in style to those made in this country — not- 
withstanding they come from Paris, and everything 
from that place is supposed superlatively choice and 
to be desired, as you are very well aware. In the 
United States there is one factory — and but one, 
so far as I could ascertain — which supplies a large 
quantity, about fifteen hundred dozens, for the Ameri- 
can market, sending them to all parts, and furnishing 



dolly's shoes. 311 

the toy-stores in Chicago and other western cities, as 
well as New York, Philadelphia and Boston. 

This manufactory is at Bordentown, New Jersey, 
and has been in existence about twelve years, and 
the value of stock now sent out is about seven thou- 
sand dollars a 3^ear; so much money for the wee feet 
that run on no errands, and save no steps for any- 
body ! The wholesale jobbers of course advance 
the price, and in the retail stores they are higher yet ; 
so that each tradesman through whose hands they 
pass has his trifle of profit in helping to shoe the 
feet of the doll-people. They retail from a dollar 
and a dollar and a quarter a dozen, to three dollars 
and seventy-five cents, according to the style. 

They " run," as the dealers express it, in twelve 
sizes j the " common doll's shoes " (which means 
shoes for common dolls) var}^, however, from the 
class made for wax dolls, which have grades peculiar 
to themselves, being not only extra full and wdder in 
the soles, but numbering few^r sizes, from one to six 
only. Of the common kind, the slippers and ties run 
from one to twelve, the others from three, four or five 
to that number. They come packed in regular sizes, 
a "full line," as those for children do, or in assorted 
sizes and styles ; in small, square boxes, such as shoe 
dealers know bv the name of " cartoon," which is 



312 dolly's shoes. 

another word for the French carton, meaning simply 
that they are made of paste-board. The tiniest is not 
much more than an inch long, but is a perfectly 
formed and finished shoe on that minature scale ; and 
the largest is almost big enough for Mrs. Tom Thumb, 
measuring about four inches, and it could certainly 
be worn by many a baby you have seen. 

As for the names, they come in this order : — slip- 
pers, ties, ankle ties, Balmorals, buttoned boots, Polish 
buttoned, Polish eyeletted, and Antoinette, which is 
a heeled, croquet slipper, in which her doll-ship, 
when engaged in that out-of-door game, can show off 
her delicate, clocked stockings to advantage. 

But what shall I say of the variety in color and 
trimmings ? They are in white and crimson, in buff 
and blue, in scarlet and purple, in rose color and 
violet, in bronze and silver and gold, everything 
but black, for dolls don't like black except in the tips 
of their gay Balmoral or Polish boots. And the stuff 
they are made of is such soft material as can only 
be found in goat and sheep and kid and glove kid, 
and skivers^ .which is the name for split leather. I 
strongly suspected that they were all made of scraps 
left from large slippers and shoes, but, though this is 
generally the case, some whole skins have to be used 
because nothing is ever manufactured for real people 



DOLLY S SHOES. 315 

in some of the fancy colors worn in the doll- world 
The soles are of leather of a very thin kind, but the 
heels are of what is called " composition " — a prep- 
aration of glue and melted rubber, or possibly, in 
some styles, of wax and clay made firm and hard, and 
they are stuck on with glue, just as the soles are fast- 
ened to the •' uppers." The rest of the work is fine 
stitching done by hand ; and the little things are all 
shaped on lasts, and in every way made by precisely 
the same process as any shoes, (except the glued-on 
heels and soles,) being cut out by patterns, in 
" quarters " and all, and the seams, straps, eyelets, 
lacings and rosettes done just as for real people. 

I opened all the boxes, and paraded some of the 
prettiest of each kind in a row before me, and sat 
and admired them. And I could not help wishing 
that I had also a row of little girls, to look and 
admire too. How their eyes would have shone, and 
what raptures, what exclamations, what shrieks of 
delight there would have been ! " Oh ! how cun- 
ning ! what lovely rosettes ! what elegant bows ! 
what dear, little heels ! oh ! isn't this such a darling 
pair ? They are too sweet for anything ! I can't tell 
which to choose — they are all so be-?/-tiful ! " 

That is what they would hav^e said, and a great 
deal more besides. And they would have just wished 



3^6 dolly's shoes. 

they could have this pair for Fanny, and that for 
Claribel, and that for Lady Gerald4ne, and so on and 
on; while /should have wished that I could make 
them all happy by giving them their choice. 

But who could choose ? The gold and silver ones 
were richest, quite dazzling to behold, and they had 
gilded and silvered heels, and ihey were shaped like 
a Newport tie ; each had its minutely scalloped edge 
where the seams overlapped and round the ankle, 
and a bow of narrow, white, corded ribbon with an 
ornament of jet and gold, or jet and silver, in the 
centre, and they were fit for the feet of fairy queens. 
The sock-shaped ties, like a baby's soft-soled shoe, 
looked somehow most real of all, as if for the least 
mite of a human baby to wear on its wee, pink feet, 
and double up in its wee, pink fist. There were the 
ankle-ties, with the diminutive strap all scalloped and 
stitched, and set with minute eyelets through which a 
a purple or blue or scarlet braid was passed, and 
every part as fine as hands could make. There were 
low, laced shoes, with heels, and without ; there were 
high-cut Balmorals with a long double row of eyelets, 
and extra high Polish boots, heeled and laced, or heeled 
and buttoned j and they were in white with scarlet 
tips, in white with gilt buttons, in bronze with steel. 

It is hard to tell what there was nof, for there were 



DOLLY S SHOES. 317 

boots and shoes and slippers for all kinds of dolls, 
high and low, rich and poor ; to walk in, to dance in, 
to play croquet in, or to stay at home in ; to match 
their costumes, to match their hair, to match their 
eyes, to suit them if anything on earth could suit. 
And every doll could be sure about her " size," for the 
number is stamped on the bottom of the soles \ and I 
must not forget to say that they have also the "trade- 
mark," which is the imprint under the number ; this 
"trade mark " is a pair of boots smaller than any- 
thing you can think of. 

Now I am coming to the original question — " who 
makes them ? " They are made in large quantities 
during about six months of the year, accumulating 
in the summer, ready for the trade, which begins in 
August, and drops off after the first of January, and 
is over with for that season by March. In those si\ 
working months the factory employs about forty 
women, and they are mostly invalids or old persons 
who are not able to do anything but light work, and 
who receive only small wages, because they are not 
capable of earning much. So they are generally 
thin, pale hands and slender fingers which patiently 
and skillfully fit the patterns, and sew the seams, and 
do the even nice stitching, and dainty ornamentation, 



3i8 



DOLLY S SHOES. 



which help to make glad the hearts of the many little 
girls all over the country, who have found a precious 
doll, all so daintily shod, among the gifts of their 
Merry Christmas. 




MY DOLLY ! MY OWN LITTLE DAUGHTER I 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 

WHEN boys live some distance apart, it is 
pleasant to be able to communicate with 
each other by means of signals. Many and inge- 
nious have been the methods devised by enthusiastic 
boys for this purpose. But it can be brought much 
nearer perfection than has yet been done, by means 
of a very simple system. 

At the age of fourteen I had an intimate friend 
who lived more than a mile away, but whose home 
was in plain sight from mine. As we could not 
always be together when we wished, we invented a 
system of signalling requiring a number of different 
colored flags ; but we were not quite satisfied with 
it, for we could send but few communications by its 
use. Then, when we came to test it, we found the 
distance was too great to allow of the different colors 



320 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 



being distinguished. The white one was plainly vis- 
ible. It seemed necessary, therefore, that only 
white flags should be used. We studied over the 
problem long and hard, with the following result. 

We each made five flags by tacking a small stick, 
eighteen inches long, to both ends of a strip of white 
cloth, ^ two feet long by ten inches wide. Then we 
nailed loops of leather to the side of our fathers' 
barns, so that, when the sticks were inserted in them, 
the flags would be in the following positions : 




r—i 





The upper left hand position was numbered i, 



*n the buildin-s should be pointed, the flags should be of a color that 
would contrast with that of the paint, 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 32 1 

upper right 2, lower right 3, lower left 4, centre 5. 
Notice, there was no difference in ihe //a^s ; the posi- 
tions they occupied determined the communication. 
Thirty combinations of these positions can be made : 

1 — I 2—24—1 23—1 45 — 1 235 

2 — 13 — 25 — 124— 235— 1245 

3 — 14 — 34— 125 — 245 — 1345 

4 — 15 — 35 — 134 — 345— 2345 
5—23—45 — 135 — 1 234—1 2345. 
These combinations were written down ; and ojDpo- 

site each was written the question or answer for 
which it stood. The answers likely to be used most 
we placed opposite the shortest combinations, to 
save time in signalling. My old " Code " lies before 
me, from which I copy the following examples : 



I. Kx 




2. A^o. 




3. Morning. 




4. Afternoon. * 




5. Evening. 




I 2. Can you co??ie over f 




13. JV/ien? 




2 5 . JVait till I find out. 




134. Can yon go a-jtshing? 




245. Are yon tv ell to-day ? 




Suppose, now, that I place flags 


in positions 2 4 


and 5. (See the above examples.) 





322 TALKING RY SIGNAT^S. 

Harry glances down his "code " uniil he readies 
245 and its signification, and perhaps answers with 
a flag at i. 

Then the following dialogue ensues : 

1. I 2. 

He. I 5. 

I. 4. 

He. 25. 

And, in a few moments, 

He. I. 

We usually spent our noon hour conversing with 
each other in this manner; and, when it became 
necessary for either to leave his station, all the flags, 
12345, were put out, signifying " gone." 

One combination, 1234, was, by mutual consent, 
reserved for a communication of vital importance, 
" Come over ! " It was never to be used except in 
time of trouble, when the case would warrant leaving 
everything to obey the call. We had little expecta- 
tion of its ever being used. It was simply a whim ; 
although, like many other things, it served a serious 
purpose in the end. 

Not far from my father's house stood a valuable 
timber lot, in which he took an especial pride. 
Adjoining this was an old apple-orchard, where the 
limbs of several trees that had been cut down, and 
the prunings of the remainder, had been heaped 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 323 

together in two large piles to be burned at a favor- 
able opportunity. One afternoon, when there was 
not the slightest breath of wind, we armed ourselves 
father and I, with green pine boughs and set the 
brush-heaps a-fire. We had made the heap in as 
moist a spot as possible, that there might be less 
danger of the fire spreading through the grass. 
While the flame was getting under way, I busied 
myself in gathering stray bits of limbs and twigs — 
some of them from the edge of the woods — and 
throwing them on the fire. 

" Be careful not to put on any hemlock branches ! " 
shouted my father from his heap. " The sparks may 
snap out into the grass ! " 

Almost as he spoke a live coal popped out with a 
loud snap and fell at my feet, and little tongues of 
flame began to spread through the dead grass. A 
few blows from my pine bough had smothered them, 
when snap ! snap ! snap ! weilt three more in differ- 
ent directions. As I rushed to the nearest I remem- 
bered throwing on several dead hemlock branches, 
entirely forgetting their snapping propensity. 

Bestowing a few hasty strokes upon the first spot of 
spreading flame, I hastened to the next and was vig- 
orously beating that, when, glancing behind me, 1 
saw to my dismay that the first was blazing again. 



324 TALKING BY SIGNALS. 

Ahead of me was another, rapidly increasing ; while 
the roaring, towering flame at the heap was sputter- 
ing ominously, as if preparing to send out a shower 
of sparks. And, to make matters worse, I felt a 
puff of wind on my face. Terror-stricken I shouted : 

" Father 1 The fire is running ! Come quick ! " 

In a moment he was beside me, and for a short 
time we fought the flame desperately. 

" It'll reach the woods in spite of us ! " he gasped, 
as we came together after a short struggle. " There 
isn't a neighbor within half a mile, and before you 
could get help it would be too late ! Besides, one 
alone couldn't do anything against it I " 

A sudden inspiration seized me. 

" I'm going to signal to Harry ! " I cried. " If he 
sees it he'll come and, perhaps, bring help with 
him ! " 

" Hurry ! " he shouted back, and I started for the 
barn. The distance was short. As I reached it I 
glanced over to Harry's. There were some white 
spots on his barn. He was signalling and, of course, 
could see my signal. 

Excitedly I placed the flags in i 2 3 4, and, with- 
out waiting for an answer, tore back across the fields 
to the fire. It was gaining rapidly. In a large cir- 
cle, a dozen rods across, it advanced toward the 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 



325 



buildings on one hand and swept toward the woods 
on the other. We could not conquer it. We could 




/ ¥/ ^-y / ■■■/—/ 



IN OBEDIENCE TO THE SIGNALS. 



only hope to hinder its progress until help should 
arrive. 

Fifteen minutes of desperate struggle and then, 
with a ringing cheer, Harry and his father dashed 



326 TALKING P.Y SIGNAL?. 

upon the scene. Their arrival infused me with new 
courage ; and four pairs of hands and four wilhng 
hearts at length conquered the flame, two rods from 
the woods ! 

My father sank down upon a rock^ and, as he 
wiped the perspiration from his smutty face, he said : 

" There, boys, your signalling has saved the pret- 
tiest timber lot in the town of Hardwick ! I shall 
not forget it ! " 

Were we not justly proud ? 

Two days after I found upon my plate at breakfast 
a small package, which contained two pretty little 
spy-glasses. 

" Perhaps they will enable you to enlarge your 
* signal code,' " was all my father said when I 
thanked him. 

We soon found that with the aid of the glasses we 
could distinguish any color. So we made a set of 
blue flags, which gave us thirty more communications 
by using them in place of the white ones. And, by 
mixing the blue flags with the white combinations 
and the white with the blue combinations, over two 
hundred communications could be signalled. Thus 
we could converse with each other by the- hour. 

The way we wrote down the mixed combinations 
was, by using a heavy figure to represent a blue flag ; 



TALKING BV SIGNALS. 327 

as 1 345, which meant that positions i and 4 were 
occupied b}- white flags, 2 and 5 by blue ones. 

Blue flags can be inserted in the original thirty 
combinations in the following manner: 1^, 128, 
i23, 1234, 1234, 1234, i234, i234, 235, 235, 
2345, 2345, 2345^ 2345, 2345, 2345, 2345, and 
so on. 

Among the many recollections that throng my 
memory in connection with this subject, is that of an 
incident which has caused me many a hearty laugh 
since its occurence, although at the time 1 did not 
feel particularly amused. Harry had gone away 
visiting, giving me no definite idea of when he would 
return. So, one drizzling, uncomfortable day, as I 
was sitting rather disconsolate at my barn window, I 
was delighted to see several flags appear on his barn. 

Eagerly I read : 

134. " Ca7i you go a-Jishing? " 

The fine drizzling rain was changing into larger 
drops, and ihere was every reasonable prospect of a 
very wet day, and I thought he must be joking; but 
I answered : 

" Whejt ?" 

^' Now,'^ was the reply. 

" Where V I asked. 

'' Bixhee'' spend:' 



32B TALKING PA- SIGNALS. 

" Are you in earnest "i '' 

" / will meet you the?'e.'' 

I answered " Yes,'' and, shouldering my fish-pole, 
started off across-lots. The distance was fully a mile 
and a half, and before I had passed over a quarter 
of the distance the bushes, dripping with rain, had 
completely drenched me. When nearly there the 
increasing rain became a heavy shower ; but I kept 
on. I reached the pond, but nothing was to be seen 
of Harry. Not a frog could I find for bait, owing to 
the incessantly pouring rain, and I knew it would be 
difficult to find a worm. So, after half an hour of 
tedious waiting and monotonous soaking, I started 
for Harry's, my patience entirely worn out. 

The rain came down in torrents as, at length, I 
turned in at the gate ; and I suppose I looked as for- 
lorn as a drenched rooster, for I heard a girlish gig- 
gle as I stepped upon the piazza, but I did not then 
suspect the truth. 

" Where's Harry ? " I asked of his mother whom I 
found alone. 

" Why, you didn't expect to find him at home, did 
you? He won't be back for a number of days yet." 

( Another subdued giggle from the next room. ) 

*' You're as wet as a drowned rat ! " went on the 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 329 

motherly woman. "What on earth started you out 
in this rain ? " 

" It's that Hattie's work ! " I burst out angrily, 
and told her the whole story. 

" Dear me ! " she exclaimed, holding up her hands, 
despairingly, " I never did see such a torment as 
that girl is ! I noticed she has seemed very much 
tickled over something ! I'll give her a real scold- 
ing ! " 

I darted out the door ; and, as I splashed my way 
disconsolately down to the road, I heard a voice, 
struggling between repentance and a desire to laugh, 
call after me : 

" Forgive me, Charlie, but it was sttcJi a joke ! " 

Hattie never meddled with her brother's signals 
again. For her mother's displeasure and the severe 
cold that followed my drenching more than bal- 
anced the enjoyment she derived from that very 
practical joke. 

Two years ago I visited my native town. Resum- 
ing my old place by the barn window, I gazed across 
the intervening forest to where Harry used to stand 
and signal to me. Tacked up against the window- 
sill was my old " signal code." covered with dust 
and cobwebs. Harry was hundreds of miles away, 



330 



TALKING BY SIGNALS. 



carving himself a name among his fellow-men. Of 
all the friends of former days, scarcely one remained 
in the old town. And I could only wish, with all my 
heart, that I were once again enjoying my boyhood's 
happy hours. 



-t?^i:, 



:#? 



^ 



&^^ 



HOW LOGS GO TO MILL. 




A MAINE WOOD-CHOPi^ER. 



LL BOYS and girls 
know that boards are 
made of sawed logs, 
and that logs are trunks of trees. Few, however, know 



332 HOW LOGS GO TO MILL. 

with what hardship and difficulty the trees are felled, 
trimmed and carried from the woods where they grow 
to the mills where they are made into boards. 

In the far West, and in the wilds of Maine, are acres 
upon acres, and miles upon miles, of evergreen forests. 
One wooded tract in Maine is so vast that it takes an 
army of choppers twenty years to cut it over. By the 
time it is done a new growth has sprung up, and an 
intermediate one is large enough to cut ; so the chop- 
ping goes on year after year. The first or primeval 
growth is pine. That is most valuable. After the 
pines are cut, spruce and hemlock spring up and grow. 

Most of the men who live in the vicinity of the lake 
region work in the woods in the winter. They camp 
in tents and log huts near the tracts where they are 
felling trees. All day long, day after day, week after 
week, they chop down such trees as are large enough 
to cut, lop off the branches and haul the logs to the 
nearest water. This work is done in winter because 
the logs are more easily managed over snow and ice. 
All brooks large enough to carry them, all rivers, ponds 
and lakes, are pressed into service and made to convey 
the ponderous freight towards civilization. All along 



HOW LOGS GO TO MILL. ^;^;^ 

the shores and in the woods are busy scenes — men, 
oxen and horses hard at work, the smoke from the log- 
ging camps curling among the trees. 

Ever}' log has the initial or mark of the owner 
chopped deep into the w^ood to identify it. Then, 
when the ice breaks up, the logs are sent down the 
brooks to the rivers and through the rivers to the 
lakes. The logging camps are disbanded, the loggers 
return to their homes, and the river-drivers alone are 
left to begin their duties. 

The river-drivers are the men who travel with the 
logs from the beginning of their journey till they are 
surrendered to the saw-mills. Each wears shoes the 
soles of which are thickly studded with iron brads an 
inch long ; and each carries a long pole called a 
"pick-pole," w^hich has a strong sharp-pointed iron 
spike in the end. This they tlrive into the wood, and 
it supports and steadies them as they spring from log 
to log. 

Their first duty is to collect " the drive." The logs 
which form " the drive " are packed together and held 
in place by a chain of guard-logs which stretches en- 
tirely around the drive, forming what is called "the 



334 HOW LOGS GO TO MILL. 

l;oom." The guard- logs are chained together at the 
ends about two feet apart. The guard is always much 
larger than the boom of logs, so that the shape of the 
boom may be changed for wide or narrow waters. 

At the head of each boom is a raft which supports 
two large windlasses, each of which works an anchor. 
On this head-work about thirty river-drivers take up 
their position to direct the course of the boom. 

To change its position or shape, ten of the drivers 
spring into a boat or bateau ; one takes a paddle at 
the bow ; eight take oars ; and one, at the stern, holds 
the anchor. They row with quick strokes toward the 
spot where the anchor is to be dropped, the cable all 
the time unwinding from the windlass. 

" Let go ! " shouts the foreman. 

Splash ! goes the anchor overboard. 

The boat then darts back to the head-works. Out 
spring the men to help turn the windlass to wind the 
cable in. They sing as they work, and the windlass 
creaks a monotonous accompaniment as "Meet me by 
moonlight," or the popular "Away over yonder," 
comes floating over the rippling water. 

Meanwhile another bateau has been out with another 



i 




A RIVER-DRIVKR. 



HOW LOC;S G(3 TO MILL. 337 

anchor; and as both windlasses turn, the boom swinos 
toward tJie anchorage, and thus is so much further on 
its way. 

Though the men sing as they work, and make the 
best of their mishaps with jests and laughter, they 
often carry homesick hearts. In cold and stormy 
weather their hardships are great, an involuntary bath 
in the icy water being an event of frequent occurrence. 
Also their work demands a constant supply of strength 
which is very trying ; frequently a head wind will 
drive them back from a position which it has taken 
several days to gain, and all the toil of fresh anchor- 
ages must be repeated. 

The most dangerous part of the work is "sluicing" 
the logs. When the boom reaches the run which 
connects the lake or ri\'er with the dam through the 
sluice of which the logs must i:iass, the chain of guard- 
logs is detached, and fastened in lines along both sides 
of the run, and the rafts are drawn off to one side 
and anchored to trees. The river-drivers, armed with 
their pick-poles, are then stationed along the run, on 
the dam, wherever they may be needed. 

The liberated, logs now come sailing along, their 



33^ HOW LOGS GO TO MILL. 

speed quickening as they near the sluice. When 
they reach it they dart through, their dull^ rapid, 
continuous thud mingling with the roar of thb water. 
How they shoot the sluice ! log after log — two, six, 
a dozen together — jDitching, tossing, struggling, leap- 
ing end over end ; finally submitting to destiny and 
sailing serenely down the river toward another lake. 

Meanwhile the river-drivers with their long poles 
and quick movements, looking not unlike a band of 
savages, have enough to do, with steady feet, and eyes 
on the alert. For of all the vast array of logs — and 
I once saw twenty-four thousand in one drive — not 
one goes through the sluice but is guided on to it by 
one or more of the drivers. They often ride standing 
on the floating logs, conducting this, pushing that, 
hurrying another, straightening, turning and guiding ,- 
and just before the log on which a driver stands 
reaches the sluice, he springs to another.. 

Woe to him if his foot should slip, or his leap fail ! 
He would be crushed among the logs in the sluice, or 
dashed among the rocks in the seething water. 

After all the logs are safely sluiced, the chains of 
the guards are slipped, the rafts are broken up, and 




" THE LIBERATED LOGS CAME SAILING ALONG. 



ttOW LOGS GO TO MILL. 



341 



these, windlasses and all, follow the logs. Then the 
boats are put through the sluice. Sometimes, when 







<y .-"/K 



/ 






THROUGH THE SLUICE. — A DANGEROUS PRACTICE THIS. 



the dam is high, some of the river-drivers go through 
in the boats — a dangerous practice, this ; for often 
the bateaux have gone under water, entirely out of 



342 HOW LOGS GO TO MILL. 

sight, to come up below the falls, and more than once 
have lives been lost in this foolhardy feat. 

A boom generally passes from three to six dams, 
and sometimes takes four months to reach the mills. 

Occasionally the logs become jammed in the rivers, 
and must wait for more water ; if this can be supplied 
from a lake above, the difficulty is easily remedied. 

In the spring of 1880, a jam occurred at Mexico in 
Maine. The logs were piled forty feet above the water 
and covered an extent of area as large as an ordinary 
village. This great jam attracted visitors from all 
parts of the country until the spring freshets of the 
next year could supply the river with water sufficient 
to loose them and bear them on their way. 



At the present time, July, 1880, the jam is still there. I saw the 
driving and sluicing as I have described it, in May, 1880. It was very 
interesting. — S. B. C. S. 



A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 



THE lace handkerchiefs, so intricately wrought 
that they resemble a spider's web, which you see 
in Mudge's and other lace stores in Boston, generally 
come from Paris, where they are worked by little 
people much like yourselves, only ever so much more 
patient and industrious I fancy. 

Never had my eye rested on a lovelier sight than 
the half-ruined convent of Sorrento built of mala- 
chite, with the sun shedding' its flood of silvery light 
over its narrow windows of stained glass closely 
guarded with thick iron rails, with creeping vines, 
flowering into red and white, entwining themselves 
between each rail. 

Its associations, those of recent histor}'-, were inter- 
esting. The Franco-Prussian war had destroyed 
much of its beauty. It towered one hundred and 



^ 14 A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 

fifty feet in the air, and the steeple itself, constructed 
of old Grecian malachite, had risen gracefully another 
hundred. The French troops took refuge within its 
walls from the flying cannon balls of the warriors, 
but the well-directed storm destroyed the steeple, and 
a portion of the southern-most extremity. 

We passed up six or seven malachite steps, and 
opened a door of the same beautiful stone. We 
found ourselves in a narrow passage, narrow where 
we stood, but diverging into an open space from 
which, in all directions, led flights of malachite steps. 
These terminated at little malachite doors. Passing 
through one of these doors we found ourselves in the 
body of the building. Presently we heard soft chant- 
ing, then louder, until the sound ceased altogether. 

" These are the workers. Monsieur," my guide in- 
formed me. 

" But what workers ? and do they sing over their 
work ? " I asked. 

" They are not working now. Yes, these are thr 
little convent workers whose fingers make cobwel 
'kerchiefs." 

" Lace handkerchiefs ? " 

" Lace 'kerchiefs, embroidered linens, even to tlie 
trousseau." 

"But where are they?" 



A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 345 

'• Come. This way." 

Down ihe middle of the room we went ; and the 
room being quite dark though it was day without, vvc 
had to grope our way along. We at last descended a 
long flight of steps till the hall below was reached. 
Turning abruptly to the left, we passed through an- 
other malachite door; and then the mysteries of 
Sorrento burst upon us. 

There were, as near as I could determine, a hundred 
girls of all sizes and ages seated close together along 
the sides of the four walls, and their little fingers, 
dexterously plying the needle, kept time with their 
bobbing heads. All wore white caps, and their neat 
white pelisses were as snowy-white as their caps. 
Inside of this square, for it was almost a perfect 
square although very large, another set of girls sat in 
a circle working as assidiously as those which were 
along the walls. All had needles in their hands- 
which looked somewhat like crochet needles, the 
points of each curved like a hook ; and with two oi 
these to each little girl, you can form no idea how 
beautiful a sight was presented by these hundred girls 
keeping time with each other, yet very quiet. 

The twenty-five windows of countless colors along 
the sides and at each end of the huge building, were 
draped with their artistic work. There were lace shawls, 



346 A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 

embroidered shawls, embroidered dresses from red to 
white and from white to palest green, worked openly or 
closely as the case might be ; fans of perfect symmetry, 
large and small, of all colors, woven with the delicate 
nicety of experienced masters ; hoods with vines and 
leaves running through them, some elaborately 
wrought, others plainer in design, but all of beautiful 
workmanship. These beautiful things, of which there 
were hundreds upon hundreds already completed and 
as many more under way, hung carelessly from the 
several high windows, drooping oftentimes on the 
smooth malachite stone of the floor. 

Presently a lady dressed in spotless white from 
head to foot and wearing an immense nun's cap, such 
as our Sisters of Charity wear, came towards us and 
extended her hand in a friendly manner. 

This was one of the Sisters. Her calm, sweet and 
benign countenance reflected the calm life she led ; 
and she looked upon the little women around her 
ever so proudly, saying : 

" Are they not very industrious ? " 

And I learned that these little women, some scarcely 
ten years of age, were each and every one orphans 
and waifs of Paris and the surrounding neighborhoods, 
who had been taken in by these kind sisters, and by 
them, instructed in the delicate art of embroidery. 



A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 347 

Their lives could not be monotonous, for when they 
were not working, the Superior and Sisters taught 
them to sing, and instructed them in different studies, 
until they soon loved their instructors, and wished to 
lead no other life. Some of these little workers were 
handsome, others were very plain indeed ; yet each 
and all bore a settled look of resignation, which you 
could not help but pity, although, when you heard 
them cheerily hum to themselves over their work, and 
saw the bright smile with which they looked up at a 
visitor, you would think after all, that they might 
have spent their lives in a worse place. Here was 
their home ; the Superior and Sisters were their 
father and mother all in one. 

We ascended to the room above. Instead of being 
dark as when we first entered it, it was now quite bright. 
Rows of tables clothed in spotless white on which 
plates were set, occupied most of the room. There 
were no chairs visible. Thfs I found to be the dining 
hail. From a side door through which my guide took 
me, J found a flight of steps leading to still another 
room. This room was similar to the one below, — the 
tables stood there, beds with snowy linen stood here. 
My guide informed me that two of these girls gener- 
ally occupied the same bed, sometimes three slept to- 
gether without quarrelling. At one extremity of this 



348 A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 

room a series of wash tubs in malachite occupied a 
niche proportioned off for the purpose ; and it was 
there that these girls betook themselves in the morn- 
ing, by turns, to wash. 

When we reached the dining hall below, the girls 
headed by the Superior herself, were standing orderly 
around the several tables waiting to be helped to the 
plain but wholesome meal. All their faces looked 
glad, and I certainly never saw a prettier sight. They 
seemed of uniform height as I looked down the rows. 

This convent, the Cordelia, makes almost exclusively 
Point d' Alen9on lace, but when orders are received 
for patterns requiring a cheaper lace, the Sisters use 
a much coarser thread than that employed in the 
Point d' Alen9on, and work it into those cheap laces 
such as Pillow, silk and cotton Blonde, and Buck- 
inghamshire. The other convents in Paris make a 
greater variety of laces, such as Maltese -point, 
Portuguese-point, Rose-point and Guipure ; the latter 
is, I believe, considered a very handsome lace, espec- 
ially when worked into ladies' caps, and little plats 
for the head. The threads used are of silk, but it is 
impossible to get them to that fineness observed in 
the Point d' Alen9on, which is the very best made, and 
is becoming so scarce that a very high price is 
demanded for it in Paris where it is made. 



A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 349 

Venitian-point is not thought very much of in Paris, 
and although it of course had its origin in Venice 
as its name indicates, the convents of Paris have 
made it for many years ; and people buying this lace 
in Venice are often compelled to pay an exhorbitant 
ixice, but if they bought it in Paris of any of the 
Sisters, or at the shops, the price would have been 
thought very reasonable. 

What may be considered as the second-class, or 
rather that lace which we would call "common," is 
Chantilly, Mechlin, Saxony, Grounded-Spanish, Span- 
ish and Pillow, or sometimes called Bobbin-lace, 
because of the pillow or cushion used to work the 
pattern upon. The remaining laces which are known, 
are Brussels, Valenciennes, Lisle and Limerick and 
Honiton, the last being the most beautiful made in 
Great Britian. Queen Victoria's wedding dress was 
of Honiton. 

But this wonderful colledtion of laces would, I 
think, be quite incomplete were I to omit the very 
beautiful gold and silver lace, which I hope you know 
is very much like other kinds of lace only the threads 
employed in its manufacture are finely coated with 
either gold or silver. The threads used may be 
either of linen, silk or cotton, and may be either 
manufactured by hand or machinery ; but I hope none 



350 A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 

of you think that modern niachmery can do what a 
pair of hands can, properly trained j probably, how- 
ever, Luigi Mastini of Milan, who manufactures a 
great deal of this lace, thinks very differently, for 
his large works there, turn out annually lace to the 
value of ;^i 6,000 or $80,000. 

The threads used in the laces above-mentioned 
are either of linen, silk or cotton, and all laces ever 
made were of these fabrics. You could no more tell 
how certain threads are employed in executing a pal- 
tern by looking ever so attentively at the little lace 
worker, than you could learn to swim by looking at 
an expert swimmer. But as nothing is ever learned 
except by constant practice, the little convent workers 
first look on, then try, try, try for themselves, but al- 
though their duty seems at first obligatory, they know 
that a home with the Sisters is better than a home 
— a very poor home — in the streets. As intricate 
pieces of lace, and sometimes those which are not 
intricate, are always executed by the aid of a pattern, 
as embroidery is done by some of the American girls, 
the first duty seems to be to have a very pretty pat- 
tern. Who really makes these patterns, no one ever 
told, but probably the Sisters or others of office 
connected with the convent, mark out the pattern in 
distinct outlines of ink. and then hand it to the 



A PEEP INTO A I,ACE KINGDOM. 35 1 

worker. These patterns are first covered from cud to 
end and side to side, with thread, (which I say inav 
be of silk, cotton or linen,) so as to make a complete 
web, very much h'ke a firmly-spun spiders', and 
although this wonderful web is perfectly unintelligible 
to us, it is not so to the little worker, who, having 
spun this preliminary net work, takes some of the 
threads already laid, between her fingers and covers 
them by loops of cross-stitches ; the small spots which 
are worked in between threads are called modes and 
are oftentimes put in after the entire work is com- 
pleted. 

Where there are so many workers of lace in these 
convents, a great many people , imagine that the 
Sisters or managers have nothing better to do than to 
barter their wares to whomsoever may chance to come 
there ; but this really ought to be explained before the 
impression gets to be general. The Sisters or con- 
vent managers, as they are called, are not allowed to 
dispose of their wares at the convent, although per- 
haps now and then a stranger seeing some little trifle 
which he fancies, is allowed to purchase it. 

The convents are all governed by a Board of Man- 
agers hired by the city, and the Sisters really only fill 
the position of Superintendent. The manner, there- 
fore, of transacting the business with the world outside 



352 A PEEP INTO A T.ACE KINGDOM. 

is quite simple, and not at all the way you at first 
suppose. You do not go to the Convent if you wish 
to purchase, but the Convent comes to you, so to 
speak, although, of course, it would be hard enough 
for one of these buildings to walk any distance. In 
other and plainer words, the Managers of the Con- 
vents establish a suitable number of agencies, for an 
exhibition and sale of their wares. So if you wish to 
purchase of Cordelia Sxur you look for a certain street, 
and having found this street, you look for a little sign 
— Cordelia Sxur (Sister Cordelia), and pull, very 
likely, a small-looking bell, and are marshalled into a 
small entry and then into a room, by a person whom 
you readily recognize as a sister. Then you look at 
any manner of wonderful things about you, and pur- 
chase if you are so inclined. 

If a wholesale or retail dealer of laces in Paris 
wishes to order a certain lot of a certain kind of lace, 
he does not order through the Convent, but goes 
instead to some one of these agencies \ and, if these 
do not have what is wanted, they immediately order 
from the Convent direct, the order-giving invariably 
coming through the agency or agencies first. 

I do not know what manner of way the Sisters 
dispose of the funds received for the delicate work 
done under their Superior • but I suspect that a great 



A PEEP INTO A T.ACE KINGDOM. 353 

part of the money is devoted to charity, many a poor 
family, honest but unable to support themselves, 
have blessed the kind Sisters. Then again, I cannot 
help thinking that a good deal of this well-earned 
money goes to the support of some of those veteran 
lace-makers, or rather thread-makers, who always 
work in damp and darksome cellars, weaving thread 
from their spinning distaff of such fineness that 
they have to put blue paper under it in order to 
see it at all ; who come and go so mysteriously, and 
are looked on with such awe, as they stagger along 
leaning heavily on their canes, from one part of 
Paris to the other. These women — so old, so re- 
pulsive looking — were once young like yourself, 
as bright and sparkling as any girl ; and even now 
in spite of their infirm walk, they have a brighter, 
quicker, keener eye than any of you will ever have. 
They cannot only see a pin in the darkness, but 
they can pick up a hair 'when no light whatever 
shines upon it. These women are the most dexterous 
workers of lace, in all patterns, but they now in their 
old age content themselves in weaving the finest of 
fine thread and selling it at fabulous prices. 

The reason that darkness, and the humid, subterran- 
eous atmosphere of a cellar are preferable to light, and 
a good, dry, wholesome-smelling room, is because the 



354 A PEEP INTO A LACE KINGDOM. 

thread would instantly break if it came in contact witt 
the dry air above; and the only way of conveying it td 
the upper regions is on reels nicely covered up. Bel- 
gium lace is made in this way, and 1 have heard thai 
many of the workers have been shut up in these prison- 
like enclosures a greater part of their lives. But would 
any one «f you like to work from one year's end to 
the other, in such a dark and loathsome place for a 
little thing they call — money? " No, not even upon 
iace. 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

TS there not a fascination about that word 
-'- " camp ? " The very mention of it is enough 
to set one wild to be off somewhere. It suggests 
the freedom of all out-of-doors, which so many of 
us o'rown folks, and all children who have the real 
child nature, so often long for and delight in. 

To go, as Charles Kingsley says, and "be a 
salvage " for a while ! To go as the trappers and 
hunters go, only there should be no traps and no 
guns among our belongings ! To do as the explor- 
ers and surveyors and naturalists do; sleep o'nights 
out under the sky, and live on food not cooked 
over civilized fires, or according to the routine 
in civilized homes under roofs in houses over 
kitchen stoves ! Would not it be rapture now and 
then to try the way of Daniel Boone and of Fre- 
mont among the Rocky Mountains, of Wilson, 



356 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

the ornithologist, and Audubon and his wife? 
Or the modern pastoral life of the young men 
who tend the cattle and sheep on the mountain 
pastures of Montana and the Texan plains? I 
cannot remember the time when I did not envy the 
boys who used to go off sugaring to a certain 
camp under the maples a mile and a half off 
on the hill. It was a privilege exclusively be- 
longing to boys ; and it always appeared as if 
boots had something to do with it — those stiff, 
tall, thick-soled boots of theirs which came about 
up to their knees, made to order by the shoemaker, 
out of calf-skin or cow-hide, and by him warranted 
water-tight, provided they were kept well greased, 
which matter was faithfully attended to by the 
wearers, who used semi-weekly to smear them with 
melted tallow and rub it in till the leather would 
shed water like a duck's back. What advantages 
in wearing such boots ! Boys could go through 
the slush and slumping drifts ; but the travelling 
was too bad for girls. Boys could go across lots 
and climb over walls, and wade. " Besides," it 
was no place for girls — they could eat maple 



A MAPLE SUGAR CA.MP, 359 

sugar at home. " Besides," it was too far. " Be- 
sides," the^^ would get "all tanned up." "Be- 
sides," the boys were going to stay all night. That 
ended it. Now, as for staying all night, why that 
was the thing we greatly desired to do. Oh, 
just to sit in the fire-lit camp and see the shadows 
come and go, and the blaze waver and fail and 
then roll up in a great wave of brightness ; and to 
know that we were off in the night; to forget every- 
thing w^e w^ere used to, and live in the new strange 
w^orld ; and look off and see the phantoms of trees, 
and the cold, glistening, frosty mist dow-n in the val- 
ley, and the solemn mountains standing back against 
the sky; to hear the voices of the night, not like 
summer ones, for kat3"-did and grasshopper and 
cricket were all gone to the Land of Light, if there 
is one for insects, or w^ere 3^vatlled in their shrouds, 
or hidden away, or had returned to the dust from 
which they came ; but there w^ere birds, and pen- 
sive small voices w^ould come out of the dark, a 
startled squirrel would rustle the dead leaves, and 
rabbits are known to walk abroad between mid- 
night and cock-crowing; the river rumbled like 



360 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 



distant thunder away off somewhere where echo 
prolonged the sound; brooks under the crust 
tinkled and gurgled, and whiles, as the Scotch say, 

the ice would crack. 
Voices of the night, 
lonesome and mys- 
tic — the air was full 
of them to one who 
had ears to hear. 

We imagined it all, 
like Annie Keary, 



who begun her sto- 
ries with "Let us 
suppose," and how, 
before it was dark 
we would gather dry 
sticks and cones and 
the kind of fallen 
pine-boughs that will snap when you step on 
them — and then the people who owned the 
camp would let us tend the fire, and it would 
roar and send out sparks — and no doubt 
smoke some, right into our eyes, and drop white 




THE SAP-BUCKETS. 



362 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

ashes on us, and burn our faces and holes in our 
garments. Perhaps, too, they would let us have a 
kettle or an old dinner-pot of our own — unques- 
tionably they could hunt one out from some of 
those dark corners overhead w^iere there were 
boards laid across for a storage place; and w^e 
would have some partly boiled syrup pi.t in, and 
it would come to candy — flavored a little bit with 
smoke and the burning on, and mixed a little with 
hemlock leaflets and the crumbling relics of 
scorched pine needles. 

We should probably find out all about sugar- 
making, too, about maple-trees, and wood-craft; 
and we would make our host tell us stories, Indian 
stories just scary enough to thrill us and make us 
afraid to look behind us if a stick crackled outside, 
and about the early settlers, and then those neigh- 
borhood stories w^hich the shrew^d country people 
can tell so w^ell, real character delineations full of 
genuine human nature about some odd geniuses 
such as Mrs. Stowe delights- to "write up." 

That struck us as a charming idea of sugar camp 
life. We ought to have been born back three or 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. ^6^ 

four generations ago, when the sugar-makers did 
tilings in a way more primitive, as the Indians 
taught them ; for it was from the Indians that our 
ancestors learned to tap the maple-trees in spring 
and boil the sap down. There were not such 
limitations to the knowledge of the red men as 
many persons think. It is doubtful if there was 
much concerning the qualities of trees and plants 
that they did not know. To be sure they had 
plenty of time, the forest all around them, and 
nothing else to do except light. 

Very soon after the Pilgrims landed, some of 
Massassoit's people entertained the white strangers 
with " sweet bread," made of Indian corn, perhaps 
first parched, and then ground — whether the sweet- 
ness was that of corn meal alone, or from some other 
source, we are left to conjectu're. Lately we have 
been told by a popular author that the Indians 
used to cook " little doughnuts of meal by drop- 
ping them into maple syrup,'' which is a hint for 
modern cooks to work out to more esthetic results. 
The aborigines had no iron utensils, so they used 
earthen pots of a rude shape, which they set over 



364 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 



the fire, and boiled the sap out in the open air. 
For collecting it they had wooden troughs, fash- 
ioned from a log by being burnt out or gouged 
out with a hard shell. Other wooden vessels were 
hollowed in the same way ; and they had, besides 
these, pails, or buckets, made from great sheets 
of birch bark. 

It is to be hoped that the Indians who were 
friendly, taught the newcomers the secret of the 
maple-trees very soon ; for in that olden time 
when broths and bean-porridge and messes con- 
coted from pumpkins made so much of the fare, 
when there was no coffee used, and tea only as the 
rarest luxury, what a treat it must have been to 
have had maple syrup ! A writer who knows, 
says that " the sap of all the New England maples 
and birches, and lindens, and hickories, and wal- 
nuts, is watery and sweet and contains crystal- 
lized sugar." It seems also that under modern 
improvements there can be sugar made from 
eight different kinds of common field corn ; but 
they did not know that it could be extracted from 
even the one kind they raised in the clearings, and 




THE SAP-YOKE. 



366 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

they cculd not have spared the corn if they had 
known. 

They made the most, however, of what they 
had. About ten years after the Pilgrims came, 
somebody composed what was called a " Forefath- 
er's Song;" wretched rhymes, telling of wretched 
fare, but supposed to show us how they lived : 

Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies, 
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies ; 
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon, 
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone. 

If barley be wanting to make into malt, 

We must be contented and think it no fault; 

For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips 

From pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips. 

Then four lines are wanting, wliich I will trust 
and hope were about something more toothsome 
than parsnips and pumpkins, namely, maple syrup 
— for next these two lines come in : 

Now, while some are going, let others be coming, 
For while liquor's a-boiling, it must have a-scumming. 

Which is what the syrup needs. 

Poor rhymes; and poor forefathers and fore- 
mothers, if they had no better food ! 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 367 

The settlers tapped the trees in a way tliat was 
no better than murder to those magnificent sugar 
maples of the primeval forest. The process was 
called "boxing;" that is, cutting a deep gash to 
let the sap run out. A piece of sumach with a 
hole bored through the pith was the spout. The 
troughs to receive the sap were like a pig's trough. 
The trunk of a white ash was sawed into proper 
lengths, and then split in halves, and then dug out 
with a gouge or a chisel, driven in b^^hand beetles. 
An expert woodman, as an old historian says, could 
make thirty or forty of these in a day. Big troughs 
out of mammoth logs were hewn out for reservoirs 
into which to empty the contents of the small ones. 
The men and boys went around with pails attached 
to a sap-yoke over their shoulders, to collect the sap. 
If the snow was deep they \f^ore " rackets," or snow- 
shoes, such as we see preserved as relics in muse- 
mns, a sort of kite-shaped frame woven across 
with leather thongs or basket stuff. 

The sap was boiled out-of-doors right in the 
"sugar bush" as they called it. Two crotched 
sticks were driven into the ground, perhaps eight 



368 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

feet apart, and a strong pole known as the 
"lug-pole," was laid across them, a big side log 
placed against each stick on the inside, and be- 
tween these the fire was built, usually of fallen 
limbs, and green ones which were gathered 
from the forest around. Great potash kettles 
were used, or smaller ones when those were not 
to be had ; and when the sap was nearly thick- 
ened to syrup a piece of fat pork, or even tallow, 
was put in to keep it from boiling over. At the 
last it was strained through a flannel sieve and 
hung up in bags to drain. The women, and chil- 
dren who were old enough, helped, working with 
handkerchiefs tied over their heads ; and altogether 
it was a wild and picturesque scene. 

Sometimes the pleasant sugar-making season had 
a sudden tragic ending when Indians swooped 
down on the little frontier settlements, as hap- 
pened once in the neighborhood of one called 
*' Number 4." A certain good Deacon Adams 
started on a bright frosty April morning to make 
sugar on a hill a mile from the cluster of cabins. It 
was in the time of the old French War when 




GOING TO THE SUGAR HOUSE. 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 37 1 

French and Indians joined together against the 
EngUsh ; and a party of them came down from 
Canada to this nook in the wilderness. The 
unsuspecting man, as he was trudging up the 
hill, was surrounded by seventy of them and 
tied to a tree while they went off and seized 
the next man they met, and the miller whose 
mills they burned ; then with those captives and 
two hunters whom they took as they went along, 
set off for Canada. It was the hapless deacon's 
last sugaring, for though he was afterwards ex- 
changed, he died on the way home. 

There is a pathetic story in the old records of a 
child lost from the sugar bush who never came 
back and was never heard of after. The father 
had a " boiling place," at some distance from his 
cabin, and his little boys, one six years old and 
the other four, were fond of spending the day out 
there with him. Young as they were they could be 
trusted, for those children living in the wilderness 
were shrewd and sharp-witted, used to hardship 
and on the lookout for danger; and, one day 
when he was obliged to go to the cabin for 



5 72 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

something, he felt safe in charging them to stay 
by the fire till he came back. But the elder one, 
happening to find a favorite spoon which had been 
lost there, was so overjoyed that he set out at 
once to follow his father, saying to the little one, 
" I will go up to the house and show the spoon to 
father," and from that moment was never seen 
again, though all the settlers for miles around 
turned out and searched the wilderness day and 
night, day and night as long as there was a possi- 
bility of finding him. 

A hundred years ago there was a growth of 
grand rock maples in this part of New England, 
and some of the farmers at the foot of the moun- 
tain (Kearsarge) used to go up on snowshoes, 
vyith kettles and tools on their backs, and 
stay and tap the trees and make sugar. That 
was camp life indeed. There were bears and 
foxes in the woods and dens of the rocks, and 
the solitude was awful. Far up the lonely 
mountain side, with miles of wilderness between 
them and the little hamlets they had left, whose 
lights they could see twinkle and then go out 



/ 




A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 375 

as they sat under the roof of pine boughs and 
watched the kettles through the night ; but tlie 
sugar-making came at a season too early for any 
other work, and in those hard times "boughten" 
sugar was dear and hard to get. There were trees 
there then that were three feet through. 

The rock maple is the beautiful tree of the 
rugged New Hampshire hills, the natural growth 
of rocky soil, as much as the firs and tiny white 
birches upon the mountain tops, the pine on the 
sandy lands, the elms on the meadows, the wil- 
lows by the water. It will live two hundred years; 
and it is such a wonderful thing for seeding itself 
that we should find ourselves surrounded by a 
wilderness in a few years if all the little maples 
were let live. 

Somebody fond of gathering statistics says that 
in some of the little hill towns before trees were 
cut down so, many families used to make half a 
ton of sugar; Maine, New Hampshir(\ Averment, 
Western Massachusetts, Ohio and Michigan, seem 
to be the favored regions, and there ought to be 
rock maples enough there to supply all their peo- 



376 'A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

pie with sugar. There would be if all farmers did 
as well proportionately as some who manufactured 
in one season six thousand pounds of " stirred 
sugar " from seventeen hundred trees, and all 
this besides the molasses which drained from it. 

Some makers refine it to the degree of loaf 
sugar till it is as white and crystal-like as a crust 
of snow. One man who described his way, said, 
as they all do, that the first thing was to have 
every and bucket spout and " carrier " and pan 
and kettle as sweet and clean as could be. They 
think it well to have covers to the sap-buckets, so 
that no leaves or anything shall fall in. They boil 
as soon as they can after the sap comes from the 
trees, keep the boiling sap well skimmed and 
clarify it with the whites of eggs or new milk 
stirred in ; this makes a curd and all the impuri- 
ties of the syrup rise with it. The whiteness is 
obtained by repeating the process of stirring and 
straining. 

It is stir, stir, and strain, strain, 
Let it settle, and do it again. 

It was news to us that sap things never rust 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 377 

When the season is over, all the buckets are 
scalded with water, then rinsed with sap, dried, 
and put aw^ay in the sap-house ; the same is done 
by the iron pans used for boiling ; they receive a 
final washing with the sweet fluid and come out 
fresh and clean the following spring. The buckets 
are of pine, though people are beginning to use 
tin ones holding ten and eighteen quarts, and 
there is also a tin spout with a hook instead of the 
wooden one. 

But that immaculate whiteness is of no special 
consequence unless one wishes to take a premium 
at a State Fair. We can all be satisfied with the 
"wax" — that delicious stage when we begin to 
try the hot liquid on a piece of snow crust, and 
keep tasting and trying, and trying and tasting 
till we pronounce it perfect ; sweetness and flavor 
can no farther go; the aroma of the woods con- 
densed in substance transparent as amber. When 
it is ready to "sugar off," one man says the test is 
to let fall a little from the point of a knife into 
cold water; if done, it will settle at the bottom "in 
a round flat drop." 



378 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

Did you know that they sometimes feed bees with 
maple syrup before the flowers come ? Think of it ! 
Honey evolved from maple sugar by the mystic bee 
agency ! What estheticism, what refinement, what 
luxury ! And do not the bees and other insects 
sip at the sap bucket ? The average boy does ; 
and the old inhabitants make " sap coffee " and 
" sap beer." You have noticed how the shade 
trees all along a village street will suddenly, on a 
bright March morning, appear decorated with tin 
kettles at the end of pine spouts ; and the tinkle, 
tinkle of little rivulets is heard as the orenerous 
trees yield their stored-up sweetness. It was not 
complimentary to the children of a certain place 
that last year all the trees had the spouts inserted 
and the pails and kettles hanging at a height which 
could only be reached by a ladder, and the ladder 
was not there. 

Maple sugar time has no definite limits. Some- 
times it begins in February, sometimes in March, 
or not till April when the "run" is a very short 
one. There is a mystery about the agencies which 
make the sap start. The woo:l-pecker who probes 



A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 38 1 

the bark may listen at the hole he has made and 
hear sometliing about it ; the woodchuck burrowed 
at the roots may be conscious when there is a stir 
within there; if there are dryads living in the trees 
and gnomes under them, they are sure to know. 
But the wisest woodsman cannot answer some of 
your questions. He will tell you that sap is 
sweeter from a tree which stands by itself; that it is 
thinner near surface water, and darker as you bore 
farther in ; but why it is more abundant some years 
than others, and just how climatic changes affect 
the flow, or the time, or flavor, he cannot say. 

The genuine sugar camp of old, without a roof 
over your head, the fire fed by sticks gathered up, 
a piece of fat pork hung above the kettle to keep 
it from boiling over, and all the gypsyish sort of 
life, has quite gone by, or pretty nearly. 

A^ou will find many a sugar place such as we 
did on that misty twilight of last April, when the 
travelling was neither wheeling nor sleighing ; and 
the horses worrying through drifts that came to the 
wheel-hubs and then plunging into soft mud — that 
is the kind in sugar-time — took us in safety at 



3^2 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

last to the door of a rambling farmhouse. The 
sugar orchard covered the side hill away beyond. 
To reach it we floundered and slipped and slumped 
along the winding country road till we came where 
the bars had been taken down and the worn path 
showed that an ox team had passed that way many 
times. It was the thing to do to follow it, now 
up, now down, over hummocks and bowlders 
and dipping into the snowy hollows, till we 
were within the sylvan precincts, inhaling the 
woodsy smells, and the odor of green things down 
in the root. 

The sugar house was as cosey as Thoreau's hut 
at Walden ; a regular hut in the woods, with its 
two windows looking into the trees, a little lean-to 
for the firewood, and the door where one could 
sit and see the sights and hear the voices I had 
dreamed about as children dream. The rugged 
tree boles showed gray as far as the eye could 
reach, and the phantom look of leafless boughs 
was overhead ; the hills, the far valley, the moun- 
tains, were all the same with a difference; snow- 
banks, wet hollows, lush moss and partridge ber- 



A MAPLE SUGA;< camp. 383 

ries ; it was in the woods, and of the woods ; rural, 
far-off, fascinating. 

Just then the foreground was occupied by an 
ox-sled, still holding, bound to it by chains, the 
barrel which had been drawn about under the 
trees to receive the sap from the buckets which 
now hung by their leathern loops empty and silent, 
for the sap was not running. 

The interior was a, place for a boy to read Rob- 
inson Crusoe in, or the old tales of Homer, while 
he waited and watched, and sat up all night to 
tend the lire, or to get one's first taste of the 
Midsummer Nighfs Dream ; a place to tell stories 
in with one's comrades, or play fox-and-geese on 
the rude board that hung on the wall, or to solve 
problems and guess riddles, and get a firelight 
education of a kind not set down in school books, 
all sorts, odds and ends of wholesome learning, 
with a good deal of nonsense of the right kind. 

There is not a little of the work-a-day about the 
experience of the sugar-makers out under the 
maples, but a poetic and picnic side, too, that one 
cannot afford to miss. And I mean to hold stoutly 



.^8' A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 

by my statement in the beginning ; and say that 
that lone sugar house with its sylvan outlook and 
its primitive inlook with its various properties, 
and all w^ were made welcome to and free of, is 
a delightful place to go lo. 



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